Stacked Deck (Or, Colin Wallis vs Single Parenting)
by UnwelcomeStorm
Summary: Armsmaster gets a call from his sister-in-law, who needs him to look after his teenage nephew for a while. Yu Narukami is a well-behaved young man, he shouldn't be any trouble at all. Really. (Persona 4 crossover)
1. September (1)

(This fic takes place after the True Ending of Persona 4, which has been adjusted to occur in March 2010. This story begins in September of 2010; knowledge of both Worm and Persona 4 are necessary.)

 **Stacked Deck** **(Or: Colin Wallis vs Single Parenting)**

 **September (1)**

The tiny warning blip appearing in the upper-right corner of his HUD blinked patiently, waiting for Armsmaster to acknowledge it. It was doomed to wait for a good long while, as the color of the envelope icon indicated it wasn't a priority message, and a high-speed chase tended to take top spot for Armsmaster's attention.

Well. Medium-speed chase. Uber and Leet had decided to adopt some tinkerfab in-line skates this week, and had been spray painting graffiti over the city. The duo had made the rather poor decision to do so close by to Armsmaster's patrol route, and the hero sighed as he just _knew_ this was getting filmed. The Tinker sped up his motorcycle, then slowed down to keep pace with the skill-channeling cape Uber. As soon as the villain slowed down to try and take a turn, Armsmaster reached over and gave Uber an almost casual shove with the butt of his halberd. It ended the chase pretty handily, though Leet was quick to rush and retrieve his partner. Irritating, but not an unexpected result.

Then it was back to his patrol, then back to the PRT building, then back to his office to fill out the paperwork that always accompanied a cape encounter. The tiny icon blipped patiently until Armsmaster was finally free to follow up on it, by then close to one in the morning. All immediate tasks complete, Armsmaster poured a bottom-of-the-pot coffee, finally sat down in his reinforced office chair, and opened his mailbox.

He promptly sprayed his desk with the coffee and choked.

-

 _Hey, little brother-in-law!_

 _I hope this gets to you quick, because I tried your phone but you never answered. You're still in the yellow pages, though, so hopefully you are still in Brockton Bay!_

 _I'm writing because I need a favor. You see, my sister and her husband are coming to the United States to work, and they need someplace for their son to stay for a while. I agreed at first, but now Allen and I need to travel too, so we're in the process of moving and I'm needing to find new work, and it's really not a good time all around to be looking after a teenager. So I gave her your address instead!_

 _I'm pretty sure even you would have let people know if you'd gotten married or had some kids of your own, so don't try and tell me you don't have the time or space! Besides, it's only for about 6 months, maybe a year. I'm told he's a very well-behaved young man, you shouldn't have any trouble with him._

 _I don't think you've met our nephew before? So I enclosed a picture as well as his flight information, though I got it from a school yearbook so it might be a little out of date. Be sure to pick him up on time, and have a good year!_

 _Love, Akane_

-

Armsmaster hadn't even finished reading the mail before he was bringing up his contacts list in his HUD, only to find that he'd never added his civilian contacts to his armor's memory. He wracked his brain trying to think of the last time he'd seen his eldest brother's contact information. If it was anywhere, it would probably be… on his fridge? He vaguely remembered typing a whole list of contacts and emergency numbers, and taping it to the appliance. Not the miniature fridge in his lab, or God forbid the specimens cooler, but his _actual_ fridge.

The one at his _house._

This prompted a 20-minute search of his office, looking for the keys, since of course he hadn't put their location into any .txt files either. And it would almost have to be a .txt file, he reflected, because the last time he'd even needed them had to be… what, 2006? Checking in monthly had long since become an unnecessary chore, so while he still paid taxes on the property, he'd at one point winterized the pipes and then had the water and electric discontinued.

Armsmaster found the keys, which did not contain any car keys because he hadn't needed a civilian vehicle in forever when he could build much better ones himself, and marched quickly back to the garage, sending Dragon a quick apology text on the way. He wasn't going to have any time for tinkering tonight, not until he got this sorted out.

* * *  
On paper, Colin Wallis lived in a small house situated between the Docks and the Towers downtown, a boxy little building squeezed in between two other similar buildings, with a strip of lawn roughly four feet wide separating the house from the sidewalk. Armsmaster did remember the address, though he had to turn around and drive his silenced motorcycle around the block a bit to find the alleyway entrance, a path behind the houses on the street composed of gravel and tall wood fences. It was a much more discrete place to park, at least, though he still had to walk to the front door to enter. With a little bit of struggle and a muffled curse, he got the door to open and slipped inside before anyone could see.

Four years of dusty silence greeted him, with the dust at least being very literal. He flicked on a helm-mounted flashlight and suppressed the creepy-crawling feeling induced by the sheer number of cobwebs. It hadn't gotten to Abandoned Temple levels of neglect, not even remotely, but the thin carpet of detritus covering everything was a stark contrast to the comforting, ordered sterility of his lab. A quick march to the kitchen kicked up more of the stuff, but as long as he didn't breathe in too deeply, it should be fine.

Armsmaster's memory proved itself reliable, for the most part. The typed sheet of contact numbers was still there, attached to the outdated appliance by a magnet rather than tape. It had gone yellow and slightly brittle with time, so Armsmaster took care to handle the list carefully just long enough to take a quick photo. He could scan it later and see if there were any other phone numbers he might need. In the meantime, he set the list back in its place on the fridge, then dug into a thin storage compartment set into the armor on his leg; even if he rarely used it, he'd always tried to keep a non-PRT phone and a headset jack available. Armsmaster pulled the cellular phone from its place, eyed the yellowed paper once more, then dialed.

Several rings later, the line connected with a sleepy grunt and a slightly-annoyed " _H'lo?"_

"This is Colin Wallis. I am looking for Allen or Akane."

" _Oh_ _—_ _Colin!"_ The woman sucked in a breath, the slightly more alert tone of voice sparking a bit of recognition. " _Colin, it's… two in the morning."_

"Yes. I just got your mail. I was working late." Armsmaster judged that his sister-in-law was probably awake enough to be reasoned with. "I can't take him, it's out of the question."

" _I know it's inconvenient, and I'm sorr_ _—_ _"_

"It's more than _inconvenient_ , Akane," he stressed. He heard the woman sigh, then a few moments later a muffled thud— a closed door. When she spoke next her voice was louder.

" _Colin, I know you like your space, but please."_

"Akane, I work late almost every night," Armsmaster said, deciding to underplay the truth a bit. "And I don't have a space set up for a guest, let alone the time."

" _He's a teenager, he doesn't need a babysitter."_

"Doesn't matter. I'm not doing it, Akane. You agreed to this, you can just take him with you wherever you're going."

Her response was biting. " _We're not going on a_ _ **cruise**_ _, Colin. We're_ _—_ _we're going to Texas."_

"What's the difference?"

" _Well, Texas has the Anderson Cancer Center."_ When he didn't respond immediately, she continued. " _Allen didn't want me to say anything_ _—_ _but somehow I doubt I have to worry about you bringing it up."_

Armsmaster set aside the rebuke—it was valid enough, even if she couldn't know the reasoning for it—and lowered his voice, instead. "What kind?"

" _Colon. They've got specialists at Anderson. Your grandfather got it too, didn't he?"_

"I don't remember." The conversation fell to silence for a few moments. Armsmaster tried to rub at his temples, but his helmet was in the way. "I can't take care of a teenager, Akane." Not with his work. Not with his city.

" _Find a handbook quick, then. It should be easy, my brother had him last year. Ryotaro said he was an upstanding young man."_

Armsmaster sighed, and swore on the exhale. There wasn't any excuse that he could give. That left him with… he pulled up the email attachment on his HUD. Three days to figure something out. "...alright. Good luck in Texas."

" _Thanks. Good luck to you, too."_ Click.

Armsmaster put the phone back in its compartment, and leaned carefully against the kitchen counter behind him. He stayed there for a while, in silence. Eventually he focused back on the email, and with a few practiced flicks of eye movement, brought up the picture Akane had sent along with his flight number. Gray eyes and a serious face stared back at him, the young man's skin and lines of his jaw suggesting someone still caught between childhood and adulthood. A teenager.

What the hell was he getting into?

Two days later, he had yet to find a solution, but he had by no means been idle.

He'd had to requisition one of the unmarked cars from the PRT garage, but it was a necessary first step in getting anything done in civilian clothes. He'd contacted the utility companies, and arranged for their services to be re-instated, but in the meantime he had a generator in the basement that proved sufficient for his needs. The ever-reliable shopvac he'd kept stashed in a closet of his lab proved its worth in clearing the layers of dust from just about every surface, though Armsmaster had at least had the foresight to cover his furniture with sheets before he'd locked up, years ago. Every non-covered surface needed scrubbing, which prompted a reluctant trip to the supermarket for cleansers and rags. For two days, he shaved hours off of his usual routine, to take advantage of the daylight to make up for the electric company's lack of haste. For two days he kept his eyes forward, resolutely ignoring the curious glances from neighbors who watched a man they had likely never seen move in.

When he finally declared the project finished, the house was at least livable, if not lived-in. He transferred a half-full duffle bag of clothes into the master bedroom, and set it on the floor. A moment later he reconsidered, sighed, and unpacked them into the dresser, mouth set in a permanent grimace of near-disgust. Denim jeans and sweaters, over the thinnest stab vest he could find. He may as well have been naked.

With no immediate task in front of him, Armsmaster felt a familiar tightness creep across his ribs, and he unconsciously tugged at the stab vest's straps near his shoulder. What was left? Groceries, probably. He didn't cook, but he could provide the basics, as well as frozen pizzas and the like… only, the boy was coming from Japan. He had no idea what the teen might be accustomed to, or even allergic. Schools had already just started for the year, but he could probably pull a few strings with Arcadia. One more thing to worry about.

That did remind him, though, that he'd wanted to get a couple of desks. A student needed a place to study, and if Armsmaster was going to be stuck here for probably six hours a night, he was going to need a place to work, as well. He couldn't bring any of his tech with him, which grated already, but getting a computer up to code for security would let him keep up with any programming needs.

His phone buzzed in its holster at his belt. Armsmaster checked the number, then stifled a sigh before answering. "Armsmaster here."

" _Huh, didn't expect that to work. Boss, where are you? The Director's paged you like six times, and you haven't answered any messages."_ Velocity— not who he'd expected, honestly.

Armsmaster leaned around the kitchen doorframe, to eye his helmet sitting on the faded couch. He could just barely make out the tiny blip of an alert light. Wonderful. "Apologies, I didn't get them. I'll head back to base shortly."

" _Eh? I didn't_ _—_ _you're not scheduled for a patrol this afternoon, I thought?"_

Car keys, where did he put the car key— right, in his pocket. "I'm not on patrol." Silence from Velocity. Armsmaster didn't quite resist the eyeroll. He did scoop up his helmet and start towards the back door, reciting that week's verification code from the M/S protocols as he did. He heard Velocity give a brief, nervous laugh.

"Let the Director know I'll be there in about thirty minutes." Traffic shouldn't be too bad, if he hurried, but he would need a few minutes to get back to his PRT-building armory and into his armor. Velocity gave an acknowledgment, and hung up. Whatever the Director wanted, it was as good a time as any to bite the bullet and request some time off.

He made it in twenty-eight minutes, but that didn't stop the sullen glare Director Piggot graced him with when he arrived. Miss Militia, Triumph, and Dauntless were already here, and a quick glance at the schedule on his HUD confirmed that Assault and Battery were on patrol. That didn't account for Velocity, but before the meeting room door closed behind him, a red blur zipped into the room and over to the other side of the table, coalescing into the speedster as he turned off his Breaker state.

"First time for everything, I suppose. I hope you've got a good excuse, Armsmaster." The Director had the gall to sound flippant, but her eyes were shrewd. Armsmaster just grit his teeth and sat down, the lack of of an answer prompting more than one raised eyebrow. The Director's was among them, but she started the meeting.

Armsmaster eyed the clock, then chastised himself for the lack of focus. Roughly sixteen hours left. He waited until the Director shuffled her papers straight with a clack, and asked, "Is there any other business before we disperse?"

Time for that bullet. "I need to re-adjust my schedule to contain no more than two patrols a week after 10 PM." Armsmaster ignored the wide eyed looks, and swallowed the bitter taste of lead. "Additionally, I will be absent tomorrow."

"And what brought this on?"

"My sister-in-law's nephew is coming to stay with me for the next few months." The startled silence didn't last, thankfully. Armsmaster opened a panel on one arm and withdrew a folded paper, then smoothed it before setting the printed photo on the desk and giving it a light push towards Director Piggot. He caught at least two of his co-workers craning their necks to see.

"You have a sister? You have a _nephew_?" Dauntless said, now actually standing up to get a better look. "Huh. Good lookin' kid. Doesn't really look like you, though." The younger hero's face took on a guilty flinch.

" _In-law_ , I said. We're not related." It was a fair assessment. The teen in the photo had calm gray eyes, and hair that looked almost silver to match, likely a result of poor quality of the original photo, which the subsequent scan and print had done nothing to correct. His identity and scheduled flight information were still written below the picture, to put a face to the name.

Yu Narukami, age 16.


	2. September (2)

**September (2)**

" _Thank you for choosing Pacific Airlines. Please remember any and all carry-on luggage, and we hope you enjoyed your flight."_

Yu waited for the majority of the other passengers around him to collect their things and shuffle down the narrow aisle, before he stood, stretched, and did the same. Hopefully his ears would stop popping soon; airplanes had quickly cemented their place as one of his least-favorite ways to travel. He followed the press of people off the plane and into the milling crowds of the airport, then started scanning the rough line of people waiting nearby, holding a variety of handwritten signs, once he noticed other passengers doing the same. Sure enough, standing a middling distance from the rest was a man holding a 5x8 note card that read 'Narukami.'

Yu let his face settle into a calm smile, and walked closer, details coming into view more clearly as he closed the distance. The man was tall, making them roughly the same height, with short-cut hair and a trimmed goatee, both a dark blonde. Blue eyes, not quite trending towards watery, and a stiff posture that suggested either military, or a profound discomfort at being here.

He'd find out which it was soon enough, he supposed.

"Allen Wallis?" Yu asked, stopping a good two feet from the man.

"Colin Wallis. Allen had a change of plans. Yu Narukami, I assume." Colin Wallis slipped the note card into a back pocket before accepting Yu's outstretched hand for a shake. "Let's go get your luggage."

Yu patted the duffle bag slung over his shoulder. "I have it."

"I meant at the bag check."

"I did not check any."

Colin Wallis paused, before simply giving a nod. "Alright. Let's go, then."

They set off, Colin Wallis (this was America, so he supposed that would mean _Mister_ Wallis was correct) making no conversation until they reached his car, and Yu watched the set of Mr Wallis' shoulders as the man's tension slowly ratcheted down to merely Piano Wire the further they got from the crowds. The relative privacy of the open road finally got Mr Wallis to speak, though when he did it was as terse and minimal as he'd expected.

"The Japanese school system is a bit different from the American one. You'll still be in high school, but I'm going to try and arrange some placement tests for you to see what level you'll be enrolled in. Arcadia just started the semester last week, so you'll need to catch up."

Showing up and flung into exams right off the bat? That sounded about right for Yu's luck. He had last year's notes and an English-Japanese dictionary with him, so reviewing those and finding some new materials were now a priority. That it was the first thing the man had mentioned suggested that academic performance was important to Mr Wallis, so Yu doubted that slacking off would be very well received. "I see."

"Additionally, I had some trouble with the electricity at my house earlier. It's fine now, but I had to empty the fridge, so I need to go grocery shopping. You can come with me, or I can drop you off at the house if you're tired."

That was tempting either way. The long flight had left him feeling drained, but from the looks of things, shopping with Mr Wallis could be an _experience_. Fatigue won out, in the end. "The house, please."

"Alright. Any allergies I should be aware of?" Yu shook his head. "How about any preferences? Like, do you have any problems with eating meat?"

Yu shook his head again. "Nothing in particular. I am not picky, and most of the time I do my own cooking."

There was a lull in the conversation, the silence stretched like a rubber band, with not even the radio to loosen it. After a good half a minute, Mr Wallis finally spoke again. "Alright. That's good. I'm not at home much, so if you're fairly self-sufficient, that would be a relief."

With nothing else forthcoming, Yu turned his attention to the window. At this point, they'd left the highway and now drove through the city proper. Buildings were a bit more spaced out than he'd expected for a city, particularly as they left storefronts and offices behind in favor of rows of houses. Now and then Yu would catch a glimpse of streets that were visibly less vibrant than others. He'd seen old neighborhoods before, where even the brickwork had gotten tired, but this looked less like an excess of time and more like something beaten to submission.

Mr Wallis slowed, then turned the car into a short driveway connected to a house that was nearly identical to the ones on either side of it. Yu eyed the property as he got out of the vehicle, trying to commit it to memory— maybe he'd better tie a ribbon to the mailbox, or something. Mr Wallis unlocked the front door, and they went inside.

The first thing Yu noticed was the lack of a shoe rack, or anything suitable for that purpose. The second thing was how _empty_ this house was. Nothing was set upon the counters or on the table in the kitchen. There was a bookshelf against a wall, near the couch, but there was nothing on the shelves. There were no pictures anywhere in sight. The air held competing scents of dust and furniture polish. Yu felt his stomach sink into a shallow pool of uneasiness. This wasn't someone's home— it was a dollhouse. Just an arrangement of furniture, pretending to be a living space.

Mr Wallis caught his stare, and his face shifted into a vaguely guilty expression. "It's… not very homey, I know. I practically live at work, so I never saw need to decorate. But, I've made up your bed and put a desk in there for you to use. Just let me know if there's anything else you need."

"Thank you, sir." Mr Wallis nodded, not correcting or requesting a different form of address. Military was still in the running, it seemed.

"Alright. I'll be back in about an hour, then. Make yourself at home."

When he checked, the closet in his new room did not have any hangers, so Yu folded his clothes and Yasogami High uniform neatly and put them in the empty chest of drawers, instead. His photo album and the few books and study supplies he'd brought went on the desk, and after some consideration, the last item in his bag was unpacked, reassembled, and set atop the dresser. The empty sword display rack was a comforting sight.

A few months ago, that simple black-lacquered stand had held his katana, one of Yosuke's spare wakizashi, and a well-used golf club. He'd entrusted them, along with the rest of his gear, to his closest friends still living in Inaba. Bringing one of his weapons with him to this country might have made him safer, but the promise in the empty display did much more to set his mind at ease:

 _Please take care of these for me, until I return._

Yu sat on the too-high bed, in his empty room, and still felt a smile creep across his face as he looked at the empty stand. It may not be as soon as he'd like, but some day that stand would be full again. And in the meantime?

Nothing else to do but make the best of things.

* * *

Colin was beginning to regret dropping Yu off at the house. Allowing the youth to choose for himself what to eat would have vastly simplified things. Instead, now he was having to ballpark guess the needs of a teenage metabolism, a task that really required a host of charts and graphs, at the very least. His first thought had been to cut as much of the middleman as possible and simply acquire a host of frozen meals, but a glance at the nutritional values had dissuaded him. Unfortunately, that meant he was back at square one.

A warning buzz from his phone drew Colin out of his thoughts, and he reflexively checked the number before answering. This was one he recognized, and the sight of it brought an instant flicker of relief. He hit Accept and raised the phone up. "Colin here."

" _I got your message earlier. Decided to check in and see how you were doing,"_ Dragon's voice was clear and warm, with notes of faint amusement mixed with her just-there accent. " _So, how are you holding up?"_

"Could be better. About 20 hours to go until I can get back to the lab, and I'm dreading every one of them."

" _Ha, and I thought I was glued to my computer. It's not like you don't spend time outside it daily, Colin."_

"Not like this." He grunted, and his fingers tightened around the shopping cart's handle. He was supposed to be on patrol in 40 minutes. He was supposed to testing version 1.5 of the combat algorithm program. He was supposed to be re-tuning the plasma injectors in his halberd. He was supposed to be doing _anything but this_. Colin sighed. This whole situation was going to massively disrupt his progress, but griping about it wasn't exactly productive, either. "Question."

" _Answer."_

"Why the hell would anyone need—" He did a quick count. "—Eight types of apples? That's absurd. They're apples. What's even the difference?"

" _Variety is the spice of life, Colin. Just pick one."_ He eyed the row of bins, then picked out a bag of the fruits. Dragon heard the rustle over the phone. " _What'd you get?"_

"Green."

" _Classic choice. So, what's your new charge like?"_

"Quiet. Travels light. Picture wasn't a misprint, by the way. He actually does have gray hair."

" _Huh. Maybe he dyes it."_

"Maybe." Colin shifted the phone to his other ear, and made a mental note to get an earbud instead. "How's your latest project coming, any progress on the heat dispersion problem?"

Dragon shifted gears into Tinker mode, and started describing her latest results in formulating a new cutting beam for her next line of mechanical suits. Colin listened, and chimed in when necessary, and let the figures and speculations sand the edges off of this errand. By the time he'd reached the checkout line and Dragon had hung up, he felt much more clear-headed. That was good, he needed to focus if he wanted to get the plasma injectors reset properly, a quarter-millimeter was enough to throw them off, and— and he was not going to be working on that today. Dammit.

Colin carried the sullen mood back with him, along with the groceries. 


	3. September (3)

**September (3)**

Yu linked his fingers together, then pushed his arms out and over his head in a stretch. Exams. Bleugh.

They weren't even essay exams, which were at least interesting. It wasn't enough that he had to translate for himself, then answer. They had to be bland, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-circle slogfests. Really, bland seemed to be the word of choice for his school of the year. Arcadia was a fine school, with open grounds and wide hallways, and it was in much better financial shape than most of the institutions Yu had been assigned to over the years. He'd passed by a couple of computer labs and a science room, while following the chattering administrative assistant who had led him to the private study room for placement tests, and even a brief glimpse had been enough to convince him that the equipment was relatively new. And yet…

And yet, he hadn't heard a single rant on morality as he walked down Arcadia's halls. No declarations of honorbound tradition, no impassioned poetry reading, no thoughtful hum of meditation, or ruminating on the positions of the planets. Only the tap-tap-scrape of chalkboards, and the droning undercurrent of lectures. The school didn't even have a set uniform, and no one was taking advantage of it to wear any sort of enthusiastic hat. Everyone was doing just as they were supposed to.

Yu had never thought he'd find calm and order so distressing. Perhaps it was the change in scenery to blame, or maybe this was just what happened to people who took a vacation after orbiting their lives around danger.

Yu stretched again, glanced at the clock on the wall—mathematics required little translation, so he'd finished early—and decided to fold his arms and rest his head on the desk. He felt so… restless. Both kinds of restless. He felt like he'd gone without rest, and yet was too energetic to rest now. Had he experienced this while still in Inaba? Yes and no, Yu decided. The quietly gnawing tension was familiar, but it had not had such a grip with there being so much else for him to turn his attention towards.

There was a subtle, warning pressure on his heart. He amended the thought: in Inaba, there had always been _someone_ he could turn his attention towards. Yu could not lie, especially not to himself. The pressure faded to a reassuring, drowsy warmth.

Yu only realized that he'd started to doze off when a cough from the doorway drew his attention. He raised his head from the desk, then gently peeled the exam's sheet of extra paper for doing calculations on away from his face. The proctor was standing in the doorway, her lips held just shy of a smile. "Mr Narukami? That will be all for today. You'll take the history and social studies tests tomorrow, so please be at the faculty office again at 8 o'clock."

Yu nodded, mumbled a thanks, and started packing up his things. A half-day wasn't so bad. That would give him time enough to explore the city a bit, and look into a few things. A check into his bag produced a pamphlet of local bus schedules. That had been a rather considerate action on Mr Wallis's part. One of the first things Yu had inquired about was public transportation, since Brockton Bay was considerably larger than Inaba, and there was little chance of being able to cross the city on foot in any reasonable amount of time. Mr Wallis had paused, agreed that it was a practical concern, and immediately taken him downtown to the Transportation Authority for the city and purchased a 3-month pass for him.

A lucky break that it had been the first thing Yu had asked, because he'd barely even seen the older man since.

Yu found the bus route map that seemed the most applicable—he'd already circled Arcadia's location on it—and started wandering in the vague direction of the faculty office. Finding a public library was his first goal, assuming they had available internet connections, because from there he could not only study, but find locations for other areas of interest in this city. Brockton Bay was simply too large to go wandering in, at least not all at once; he'd have to plot out different districts to explore on foot. The run-down buildings and glimpses of squalid streets were an ominous indicator, but Yu would not be deterred.

Determination quickened his steps and set a fierce grin on his face. Somewhere in this city, there would be a perfect fishing spot. And he was going to find it.

* * *

The Brockton Bay Central Public Library was quite accommodating, Yu was pleased to find. Quite a bit busier and a little noisier than he'd like, perhaps, but this _was_ a large city. Most importantly, there was free (if time-limited) computer use for anyone with a library card, which Yu wasted no time in acquiring. Once he had a small cubby under his domain, he set about the most important task of the day: making an email account.

Yu sent off a quick mail, then started some research while he still had access to the internet. There was a disappointing lack of Parks and Recreation information for this city, but he jotted down a few notes anyway. He quickly enough moved on and was investigating a few other goals when a reply to his mail arrived. Yu blinked at it, then smiled. With the time difference, he hadn't expected such a prompt response… but, Naoto did keep odd hours when she was on a case. He opened the email to find a link to a chat server, and followed it.

 **Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards**  
You are currently logged in as Guest

 **You have entered a private chatroom with: ElementaryDearWatson**

 **ElementaryDearWatson:** there u are! was waiting 2 hear from u  
whered u end up?  
evry1 misses u

 **Guest:** I miss everyone too. My parents sent me to America this time, I'm staying with my aunt's brother in law, apparently? And I'm in a city called Brockton Bay.

 **ElementaryDearWatson:** weird thats kinda a stretch of family  
guess ur phone wont work there?  
city sounds famiiar tho

 **Guest:** Yeah, I'm out of network. I get charged for calls and can't use text or internet. I'll let you know when I get a phone that can text to Japan, but it might be a while.  
Education Visa means I can't be hired anywhere :(  
I'll need to get creative to find a part-time job.  
How is everyone doing?

 **ElementaryDearWatson:** mostly good, Rise is on tour. Hong Kong i think  
Yukiko busy w/ inn as always, im on missing person case outside kyoto  
Yosuke Chie & Kanji getting restless tho  
Yosuke talking about going sentai after graduation

 **Guest:** Not surprised. Keep me posted?  
I'm on a public computer and need to quit soon. Stay safe, Naoto. Say hi to everyone for me.

Yu logged off after exchanging goodbyes with the prodigal detective, and sighed when he noticed the time at the bottom of the computer screen. About time to head back to Mr Wallis' house. The man himself probably wouldn't return until at least eleven, but that was no excuse not to leave something prepared for him in the fridge. The contents of the cupboards promised that to be some manner of box-readied meal, but Yu could keep an eye out for grocery stores along the bus routes, to correct that in the future.

* * *

"This is ridiculous. I should not have needed to explain this _three times_ to him." Armsmaster spoke through gritted teeth as he closed up one panel on his current halberd and opened another. He needed to run a systems check on the Model 02 before the planned strike on a Merchants supply deal tonight, but _someone_ had decided to be obtuse. Now he had to rush things, which was not only aggravating, it was an active danger to the operation. "I know he didn't graduate all that long ago, but Triumph is usually better than this."

"What was the problem?" Dragon's voice spoke up from a nearby laptop. She was working too, so her avatar display was missing, but a simple voice chat program wasn't intrusive to either of their projects.

"Tactics and strategy for a bust later. He couldn't seem to wrap his head around half of i— you think it's on purpose?" It seemed unlikely. Armsmaster didn't have much contact with Triumph, maybe as much as Assault; just a matter of different talents and schedules. He didn't _think_ he'd offended the Blaster, but a second opinion was always a good idea on that front.

"Well, that doesn't sound like him. Can I ask what it was he was having trouble with, specifically?" Armsmaster closed up another panel and started a voltage check on the Model 02 halberd's taser function, reciting what was by now a familiar briefing as he did so. He heard a ' _hmm'_ sound from Dragon over the speaker. "I can see what you're going for there, yes."

"Exactly. It's practically self-evident."

"To _you_." Armsmaster took a moment to shoot the laptop an irritated glance, despite the lack of visual feed. "You're an intelligent and clever person, Colin, but you tend to assume that everyone already knows what you know. You almost never give any context for things, because it already seems obvious."

"You don't seem to have any trouble keeping up," he muttered.

"You keep me on my toes," Dragon agreed cheerfully. "Just maybe keep it in mind for next time."

Armsmaster huffed, and started running a quick systems check on his armor's internal components. 'No context,' she says. A Merchant bust operation shouldn't need extra context, not in this line of work. Even the Wards knew the basic rundowns of the local gangs, and full Protectorate members were expected to keep up-to-date on internal status briefings. A strike on villain-held assets was _routine_ by now, so maybe Triumph just needed to keep up. It wasn't like the Merchants even had many capes, and the big names were well-documented, Armsmaster was pretty sure even most school-age children could talk about Skidmark and Mush's powers. How much more context could he possibly _Yu was a Japanese immigrant in Brockton Bay_ _ **Jesus fuck**_ _._

Feeling suddenly very far away, Armsmaster heard himself call over towards the laptop. "Dragon, if you'll excuse me, I have to make a call."

"Huh? Sure, Colin. I should get going anyway, so I'll just drop the server. Talk to you later."

"Mhm," he replied, as he fumbled out his personal phone from its compartment and started dialing. After a full five rings, the call connected. "Yu, this is Colin Wallis."

" _Hello, Mr Wallis. Is there something you need?"_

"No, but I wanted to warn you about the local gangs. Brockton Bay isn't a very safe city. Stick to full streets and well-lit areas, and try to be home by dark." A glance at the clock— he needed to get moving or he'd be late for his own operation. "Listen, I'll give you a better rundown later or write you a note or something. Just be careful."

" _I understand. I will be careful."_

"Good. Goodbye." Armsmaster hung up, then shoved the phone back in its compartment and hurried out the door, bringing up a basic notepad program on his HUD as he did so. He wrote in a quick reminder to explain to his charge about the ABB— _how_ had he overlooked that? 'Everyone' knew that the ABB targeted people of Asian ethnicity, that was how. Maybe Dragon had a point.

* * *

"I understand, I will be careful." Yu replied, then listened to the voice on the other end of the call mutter a goodbye before disconnecting. He pulled the phone away from his ear and addressed the semicircle of toughs who had cornered him in the alley. So much for taking a shortcut. He hadn't heard any motorcycles— were the muggers part of a gang? Yu rather doubted that the distinction mattered, for the moment. "My uncle wants me to be safe, and avoid gangs."

There was a smattering of snickers, and the man nearest him grinned, showing off several blackened teeth. "Good advice, pretty boy! Suggest you take it, an' stay safe by handin' over yer phone an' yer wallet."

"I see… Yes, I will be careful." Yu said, then dropped his small bag of groceries to the pavement as gently as he could. His phone went back in his pocket, prompting a snarl from the toughs and a couple of them to smack their baseball bats against their palms. None of them looked to be wearing any kind of protective gear at all, so he was going to have to be very careful indeed.

"Little shit!" One of the men with a bat spat at him, then swung the implement with a whistle of air. Yu brought up his arm, and the worn bat collided with a thunderous _crack_ , the impact sending cracks and splinters all the way down to the handle. In the sea of his soul, Yu thought he heard a faint chuckle. The rest of the thugs abandoned their smiles and insults. He heard one whisper the word 'cape.'

"Do not worry," Yu assured them, "I will be _very careful_."

* * *

It was a bit after dark when Yu returned to Mr. Wallis' house, which was later than the maybe-curfew his uncle had suggested, but the groceries he'd picked up had survived the tussle with the maybe-gang intact, so Yu was counting this as a net win. He'd picked up a couple mild bruises from the assault, but they had immediately been swept away by Izanagi-no-Okami's power, so that was no concern at all. Instead, he busied himself with investigating the kitchen cupboards. Hopefully, Mr Wallis liked fried rice.


	4. September (4)

**September (4)**

Two weeks later, Yu _still_ did not know if Mr Wallis liked fried rice or not. But not from a lack of trying.

At first he'd held to the reasonable delusion that Mr Wallis's late hours were a temporary thing, because while getting home from work at 11:00 at night (and sometimes even later) was maybe just a normal schedule, Yu was pretty certain that this would only hold true for someone starting work in the _afternoon_. But from his brief experiments in getting up in the morning, he'd concluded that Mr Wallis left the house somewhere between 4 and 5 in the morning. If you didn't subtract travel time, that was an 18 hour day on average. And that was _before_ the older man had set up a work desk and a laptop against one wall of the living room; now, when he'd gotten up in the night to use the restroom, Yu had found Mr Wallis sitting at his desk and typing away until nearly 2 in the morning. It was crazy. Nobody could live on 2 hours of sleep a night.

Point being, his efforts at getting Mr Wallis to sit down for dinner had apparently been doomed from the start. So he started making a plate and wrapping it up, leaving it in the fridge for Mr Wallis to find and consume when he was ready. Except that didn't happen either, and every day Yu would find the prepared meal still in the fridge, untouched. Even after he'd left a note on top of it, specifying that it was indeed for Mr Wallis and that therefore he should eat it. Mr Wallis never mentioned the meals either, not even to tell Yu that they were apparently unnecessary. It was like he never even looked in the fridge to see them.

It was a possibility that Yu was forced to consider. Mr Wallis had evidently seen the few grocery items Yu had picked up and—through a series of notes left on the table and brief, 2 AM conversations—had proposed simply granting Yu a weekly stipend so that the youth could choose what he wanted to eat instead of Mr Wallis needing to guess. Which, while _technically_ a practical and reasonable conclusion, was _not at all_ what Yu had been aiming for.

Without any inkling or intention on his part, Mr Wallis had thrown down the gauntlet. And Yu would leave no culinary challenge unconquered.

But first there was a stray dog that needed to be pet.

Yu had spotted the mutt while walking along the side streets north of Arcadia High, on his daily ramblings. He knew nothing about dog breeds, but he thought it was medium sized? And was mostly in shades of brown, though some of that was probably dirt. The poor thing looked hungry and maybe a little lost, but it had shied away when Yu tried to approach it. Naturally, this meant Yu started taking a small plastic bag of lunchmeat with him to school, and after a few days he saw the animal again. It still wouldn't let him get near, but it enjoyed the slices of ham he left it on the sidewalk, and after a few more days of this, it started letting him sit nearby while it devoured the snack. He thought he was making good progress, but not everyone agreed.

"Hey! Asshole, don't give your dog people food. It's not good for them."

Both Yu and the dog looked up at the blunt-featured young woman who was approaching them, a tough-looking girl in a heavy jacket who had a dog of her own on a leash. The stray backed up a few steps and whined, catching the girl's attention. Her frown deepened.

"Is it? Sorry. I did not know what else to feed it. I think it is a stray."

"If she's not yours, why're you feeding her ham?" The girl didn't bother looking at him again. Instead, she clicked her tongue at her own dog, who obediently sat down and took the end of his leash into his jaws for safe keeping. She approached the stray with more grace than he'd have thought heavy boots like that would allow, and made soothing noises at it.

"It looked hungry, so I wanted to feed it." Yu was clearly inconsequential to this event, so he stayed still and nonthreatening as the girl coaxed the stray dog to come to her. "Dogs must trust you very much."

"They trust because I know what I'm doing," she replied, and picked the stray up and into her arms. It—well, she—looked agreeable enough to that sentiment. "Brutus, heel."

"Are you going to take care of her?" Yu asked, as he got back up from the curb. The girl nodded. "Thank you."

"What're you thanking me for?"

"For taking care of the dog. I am glad she will have someone to trust." He smiled, and she grunted at him, then whistled to her dog and walked away. What a nice young woman.

* * *

Attending Arcadia had, with some difficulty, slipped into something of a routine. Yu's classes were all over the place, because while he'd managed to score extremely well in several subjects that he was familiar with (math and science among them), he didn't have the background knowledge required for other courses, like US History. He ended up with half his classes with the upperclassmen, and the other half split between the middle and lower grades within the school. It was a somewhat awkward placement, and he made the choice to ask his instructors for some extra material to try and close the gaps; to his surprise, this arrangement wasn't unheard of, or even uncommon. Arcadia seemed to keep to a policy of having students in classes at their performance level, not by year. It was another of those things that technically made sense, technically was practical and reasonable, but Yu couldn't shake a small amount of pity for the situation. Students were shuffled among classes and even year levels, so that meant they never got to stay with their year-mates, never built the solidarity with each other that Yu was used to. How lonely they must have been. Instead, they tended to form up into smaller groups, which used some arcane means of hierarchy to determine which cafeteria tables belonged to whom. Of course, this meant Yu needed to find a different table to sit at each day, to get a better picture of the different cliques and interest groups that attended Arcadia. Today's choice: the Cape Geek Table.

"Hey, you're the new guy, right?" Yu nodded, and brushed away the pang of nostalgia. The red-headed boy on his left grinned and offered a hand to shake, which he took. "Cool. I'm Dennis, and you're you."

"Correct." Why did he feel like there was a joke he was missing? "Do we take World Studies together? I think I remember seeing you there."

"Yeah, I think so. With Schumer? Yeah." Dennis took a bite of his hamburger and spoke, open-mouthed, while he chewed. "Sho yu're frahm Japahn?"

"Yes, I am." Yu picked at his own meal, already resolving to start bringing his own. Out of a lack of appetite, he started carefully stacking the flat-cut cooked carrots into a tower.

"That's cool. Why'd you move to Brockton Bay? I mean, I could see Boston, or something, but the Bay?" The boy across from him spoke this time. When Yu glanced up, he continued, "Chris, by the way."

"My parents travel often for work. I am here to stay with my uncle for a while. It was something of a sudden arrangement." And here came the inevitable question. Yu started a second tower a few inches from the first.

"Really? I mean, how sudden? I mean you got into _Arcadia_ , so it couldn't have been that sudden."

Yu blinked. That was not the inevitable question. He liked this Chris guy already. "A couple of weeks ago. My parents let me know we would be in the United States, but I did not find out where until the last week of August." Mashed potatoes formed a wall between the two towers, as a sturdy keep slowly took shape on his lunch tray.

"Damn. Your parents got some pull, then." At his confused look, Chris explained the waiting list to get to Arcadia, and some of the reasons for it, which only brought up more questions, not less. Yu's parents hadn't decided on Brockton, that had been a last-minute decision, if Mr Wallis's words and home were any indication. Which implied that Arcadia was _Mr Wallis's_ decision… which implied its own host of things. Yu seriously needed to find a time to actually talk to the man. He didn't even know what his current guardian's job was. This was going to require some planning. "And again— _Brockton Bay_. Did your parents take up a job with Medhall, or something? There's not much here except that and gangs."

"They are actually on the West coast," Yu said, then pressed on rather than admit he wasn't sure what his _parents'_ jobs were, either. "And my uncle mentioned the gangs. I have gotten some questions from people here already. Is it common for Asian people to travel from other continents just to join up with a street gang? Because that seems to be the assumption."

The question garnered a few laughs and broke the tension, though Yu didn't see it as very funny. He'd gotten delayed by more toughs last week on his way to the library, and they'd been even more fragile than the last group. By the time he'd called an ambulance for them just in case and finally gotten to his destination, all the computer cubicles had been full. Maybe he could use the school's computers? He posed a quick question, and someone at the table he'd not been introduced to answered, which meant the ongoing siege of the Meatloaf Federation against the Republic of Peas taking place on his tray was no longer a priority. Yu quickly excused himself and hurried to the school's nearest computer lab, to spend the rest of the lunch period productively.

Luckily, there were plenty of desks open, so Yu claimed one and accessed the internet. It was becoming clear that he could really use more information about the city he'd landed in. And while Yu wasn't clear on the best place to start on finding out, he knew who would know.

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 **Subject:** WHY R U IN BROCKTON BAY?!

As usual, Naoto was a few steps ahead of him. 


	5. October (1)

**October (1)**

At 11:23 PM, Colin parked his requisitioned car into his driveway, and paused for a moment with his hand on the keys. Though the blinds were down, there was an obvious glow around the corners of the windows on the front half of the house, indicating that someone was there and awake. If Yu made a habit of staying up on school nights, he'd never done so outside of his room. An oddity, but not really any of Colin's business. He turned the ignition off and got out of the car, then grabbed the armored briefcase containing his laptop off the passenger seat. Hopefully Yu at least had the good sense to keep the front door locked… he gave the knob an experimental twist. It was; good. A quick turn of his key unlocked it again.

Colin opened the door to find Yu not only still awake, but sitting at the kitchen table with a sheaf of papers in front of him. The youth stopped his work of putting the papers into different stacks to look up at him as he entered. "Good evening, Mr Wallis. Welcome home."

"You're up late," Colin remarked, as he twisted the lock on the door again and shut it behind him.

"So are you." Yu resumed sorting his papers with an easy smile.

"Yes, but I'm always up late. I don't think I've seen you awake at this hour before. Is that a school project?" A second glance told him that Yu was sorting the pages by color, thanks to a header at the top of each: red and black in one stack, red and green in another, a third with orange… there were a good five or six different categories present, and as he watched, Yu slid a sheet topped with a red and black header onto its appropriate stack. Beneath the header was a printed photo of an unfortunately familiar albino man. "That is not a school project."

"It is not a school project," Yu agreed, and added another pair of sheets to the orange stack. Colin recognized Gregor the Snail's hat-obscured face on this one. "One of my friends in Japan assembled a dossier on the parahuman groups in this city for me. Apparently, this city has a reputation, and she wanted to make sure I was informed on the dangers."

"These are… quite thorough." The friend of a highschooler _just happened_ to have a dossier on capes from around the world? Information that looked like more than just what was available to the public, at that; these had not been ripped from a wiki. Were these from the international database? _Alarm_ did not quite cover what Colin was feeling. "Your friend gave these to you?"

"Yes. And you are correct, she is quite thorough." Yu finished his sorting and looked up at him. "It is part of her job, after all. She is a detective."

"I see. Her name?"

"Naoto Shirogane. Is it possible you have heard of her? She was famous in Japan even before I met her, but I recall seeing her name quite often once she began specializing in parahuman cases."

The name did ring a few bells— something Dragon had been talking about, months ago. Colin cursed his lack of a helmet, and its unending utility capability called wi-fi. Fortunately, Yu seemed pleased to continue. "We were at the same school last year, in Inaba. Are you interested in parahumans, Mr Wallis?"

The sudden shift threw Colin for a moment. "What?"

"This is the longest conversation we have ever held." That— was true, yes. Yu started stacking each separate pile of dossiers into one giant one. "Usually, by now you would have already set up your computer and begun working. I am glad to finally find something that sparks your interest."

"I'm not interested in them, but I do have to know about them for my job." That was suitably vague enough, right? Yu had a pretty intense gaze for a teenager. That, or Colin was just unused to watching people directly rather than through his helmet's display. It was probably the latter, but either way it was making him uncomfortable. He didn't walk away from his lab to _chat_. And now he was running late to get started on reviewing the code for his lie-detecting algorithms, and—

Yu's eyes just _lit up_. "That is something I have been curious about. What do you do for work, Mr Wallis?" Oh, for…

"Research and development with the PRT," Colin said, and started moving away from the kitchen and towards his work desk, such as it was. There, same answer he wrote on his taxes. Conversation over, time to get back to wor—

"Just the one job, then?" Yu was not following him, thankfully, but the teen had decided to stand up and lean on the kitchen doorframe, where he could see Colin's desk against the nearby wall. He had the dossier bundle tucked under one arm. "You are away for so long each day, I had wondered if you were working at two places. Apparently, it is just one very important job, instead."

" _Yes_ , Yu, it is. And I need to get back to it."

Yu's eyes widened a bit at his cautionary tone. "Ah— sorry, I did not mean to disturb you. I will go to bed now."

Yes. Good. "Alright. Make sure you're rested for school tomorrow." Colin pulled his laptop out of its case, and set it carefully on the surface of the desk. A keyboard and a headset followed it. He was about to hit the power button and finally get started, but Yu—being a teenager—needed to have the last word.

"Still, I am glad. To spend so much time on it, your work must make you very happy. Goodnight, Mr Wallis."

That was—

Colin's reflection stared back at him from the darkened screen. He pressed the power button and the machine whirred to life, banishing it. "Not the point," he muttered.

* * *

The nutritionally and calorie-dense edible bars (he refused to name them a food; he had _some_ standards) were not Armsmaster's idea of a meal and, indeed, were mostly kept as a supplemental measure. Patrols could run long, and between daily workouts in the gym and the rigors of being a member of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay, they were invaluable for warding off fatigue and unnecessary loss of weight or muscle mass. Keeping diligent track of nutritional needs and intake was just a part of proper self-maintenance, as anyone with a professional obligation to keep their body in high performance can attest. And while the selection in either the Rig or PRT buildings' cafeterias wasn't great, taking a break for a meal was a productive use of time, letting Armsmaster refuel his body and catch up on reading a research article or two at the same time.

But, with needing to leave work every day, that time needed to be made up. Sacrifices had to be made.

And if only sacrifice didn't taste so much like _chalk_ , he probably wouldn't have even minded.

As it was, he was stuck at his desk, trying to find the bug in his mail-alert program, and sending occasional, resentful glances at the half-eaten edible bar on a paper plate nearby. He didn't bother to look up when the door buzzer on his lab sounded, he just fumbled for the button and pressed it. The pneumatic door opened with a _shump_ sound, followed by the light footsteps he tentatively identified as Miss Militia.

"Armsmaster, sorry to interrupt," Miss Militia started, confirming his guess, "but you're driving the mail room up the wall. At least send confirmation notice next time if you're not picking it up right away, so they can stop trying to get a hold of you."

"Great, it's in the main system too?"

Militia slowed at the question, then stopped near his desk. "Ah… what is?"

"The bug. I keep getting 'message waiting' pings in my HUD but there's nothing in my box or email. Though if the error code is in the main system, that would explain why I can't find anything."

"...I think there's been a misunderstanding."

"Well, yes. The internal distribution center thinks I have a delivery that doesn't exist. That is in error." Armsmaster set aside his internal diagnostics program and brought up a more general one. "Thank you for letting me know, I should be able to find the problem much quicker now."

"Colin, no. You have mail. I picked it up for you when I stopped by the mail room."

"No, I told you, I checked my box already, there was nothing—" Armsmaster turned his head. Miss Militia stood there, with a brown-paper wrapped box and an unamused expression. "—Where did that come from?"

"Your _mail box_ , Colin."

"How? I've been getting the alerts for over an hour, I just re-checked it ten minutes ago."

"Not your Protectorate box, _your_ box." She set the package on his desk. It wasn't even in a flat-rate post box, just carefully wrapped in brown paper. It had been stamped by the mail room as having passed the safety checks and scanner, though there was an additional 'organic matter' stamp as well. The mailing address was hand-written: 'Colin Wallis, ℅ Brockton Bay PRT.' The number of people who knew Armsmaster by his full name could probably be counted on one hand, and most of them were on the same team. And that wasn't Chevalier's handwriting, so _what was this_?

A bomb would have gotten picked up by the scanners, and the stamp said it contained organic matter. Had he pissed off and subsequently been discovered by a biotinker? Armsmaster promptly abandoned his desk and reached for a side panel, set into the wall a few feet away. Spectroscope, spectroscope… there!

"Militia, you picked it up with your bare hands? How long has it been in the building?" The mail room scanners were something he'd built himself, and should have picked up any radiation or known toxins, but there was always the possibility that it had missed something, or had chosen a very poor time to require maintenance. He quickly aligned his handheld version of the device with the package. Radiation, none. He could spray it with a fluorescent, but it was bound to be covered in handprints from the mail room alone, so it could wait. A quick x-ray exposure showed…

Armsmaster set the spectroscope aside on the desk. With one hand he broke the tape on the side of the wrapped package, then pulled out the contents from its brown paper covering. A plain, sealed container of tupperware now rested on his desk, and while condensation within obscured much of its contents, he could clearly make out a portion of rice and some combination of vegetables. There was also a helpful note:

 _Mr Wallis_ _—_ __

 _I have been leaving meals for you in the fridge when I cook, but you never seem to take them. I decided to drop this off at your place of work so that you would not forget. Please enjoy it._

 _—_ _Narukami Yu_

Armsmaster stared at it. "This is highly irregular."

Miss Militia looked at the boxed lunch, then at Armsmaster, and the tinkertech scanner still near his hand. "I agree. Now what?"

"Now I stop wasting time looking for a program error that doesn't exist, and ask Yu not to do this again."

"Right, if he'd left a return address that would have simplified things."

"Yes, but I meant _at all_ , so it will be a moot point." Armsmaster sighed, pushed the boxed lunch and its wrapping out of the way, and sat back down at his computer. He started exiting out of the different diagnostic programs he'd spent the last half hour combing through.

"Wait, what? Why?"

"Because it's unnecessary."

"I don't think that's the point. He made you lunch."

"Which doesn't make any sense, as I'm perfectly capable of providing for myself. I certainly didn't ask him to."

Miss Militia closed her eyes for a moment, and breathed in slowly. "Generally speaking, Colin, providing someone with a home-cooked meal, even if they didn't ask for it, can be considered a gesture of affection and appreciation."

"..."

"Ergo, you should…" Militia trailed off, as though wanting him to finish the sentence. He did not feel like obliging.

"That would make even less sense, we barely know each other." Yu should have had no reason to try and curry favor with him. Was there something that the teen wanted, or that Colin had failed to provide? What had he missed?

"It may sound like a stretch, but maybe it just means he wants to get to know you better." Miss Militia tapped his desk twice as a goodbye, then strode out of his lab, footsteps vanishing as soon as she passed out the pneumatic door. Once she was gone, Armsmaster turned to regard the tupperware container. A strict regimen—be it diet, sleep, or exercise— was difficult to get used to, but even harder to go back to, once broken.

The offered lunch's presence made the meal bar taste even worse, but such was life. Sacrifices had to be made. 


	6. October (2)

**October (2)**

It was definitely a bad day when Narukami Yu did not feel like meeting new people. He found a seat on the emptier half of the Cape Geek table at lunch and sat down to sulk, and ostensibly to eat lunch. But mostly it was to sulk. Dennis caught on to his mood pretty much immediately.

"I see someone's got a case of The Mondays," he snarked. There was an immediate groan from a couple of other teens at the same table, so perhaps it was a running joke. "Seriously though— something up?"

Yu jabbed the stupid, awkward fork he'd packed along with lunch into a piece of broccoli with a bit more force than necessary. "My uncle is a cactus."

"Uh…"

"Not the soft-looking ones, with the short bristles. Or those little houseplant cactus ones, that look like flowers with needles. But a real cactus, with spikes." _On a diet_ , he'd said. _Don't do this again_ , he'd said, like Yu didn't know how to balance nutrition. Like he couldn't hear the ring of a lie behind the justifications. Yu had simply kept his face neutral while Mr Wallis explained that he didn't need or desire the lunch he'd made for the busy man, so now that he knew, Yu didn't have to waste the time. Waste. The. Time. Mr Wallis could not have angered him more if he'd _tried_.

Preparing food for others was _never_ a waste. Gifts were not poor time-management. How could Mr Wallis think that? It was clear to Yu that, at least on some level, he _didn't_ , and the contradiction was bizarre. As far as he knew, there wasn't a person alive that could lie to Yu any more than he could lie to himself— not anymore. Not with Izanagi's eyes open behind his own. So he'd seen the falsehood in Mr Wallis' words, and yet—and _yet_ _—_ he'd also seen the truth of his belief in it. How? How was it possible to believe something you _knew_ to be false?

Ugh. It was giving him a headache. Yu scowled at his uneaten lunch, and in a fit of angry whimsy began to pack it up. "I cannot study like this. I am slicing class today."

"You mean _cutting_ class, right?" Dennis had a smile on his face at odds with the worried tone.

"Yes. See you tomorrow."

No teachers stopped him on the way out; it was lunch hour, and he had a lunch, and was tall enough to be an upperclassman, so he'd simply walked out the door as though to eat his lunch outside, and then kept going. He ate at the bus stop, and stared out the window the whole route back to Mr Wallis' neighborhood. The house was empty when he arrived, of course, and Yu slung his backpack onto the old couch and sat down beside it. After a few minutes of silence, Yu dug into his bag for some spare sheets of paper, put a small stack on the coffee table, and started folding. His heart wasn't really in it, which is exactly why he did it— he folded paper cranes until he felt calm again. The fruits of his labor went on the barren shelves behind the couch. After that…

Yu cast his gaze about the house, looking for something to do. The place was tidy by default because there was very little in it. Not for the first time, Yu wondered if Mr Wallis had actually been living here before Yu had gotten dumped in his lap. Except it didn't have the same feel or smell of a new house, and when he'd first arrived, the air had been thick with the scents of dust and furniture polish. Maybe it was paranoia, but to Yu, it seemed very likely that Mr Wallis _did not live here_. And yet, he'd started—or at least made the pretense—of living here at the drop of a hat. He'd gotten Yu enrolled in Arcadia, which he'd been told had a substantial waiting list, on the same lack of notice. Something wasn't adding up.

Yu pressed his fingers to his temples and sighed. He was getting worked up again, and with nothing that he could see to do about it. His options otherwise exhausted, he started looking for the TV remote; _probably_ had basic channels, at least. Maybe. And his couch was either deeper than it appeared, or there was no remote to be found. Manual it is, then. Yu hauled himself off the couch and skirted around the low coffee table to kneel in front of the television. He spotted the power button near the bottom rather quickly, and reached for it. But… Yu pulled his hand away, and eyed the dark screen. Well, as long as he was indulging paranoia today…

Yu touched a finger to the cool glass of the screen. Nothing. The rest of his hand followed suit, quite likely leaving a print on the front of the appliance that he'd need to clean later. Still nothing. He gave the TV just a _little_ push.

The glass rippled, and his hand went straight through the screen. Yu jerked his hand back out, and the TV's display returned to normal. Well then. Yu sat back on his heels, equal parts dread and curiosity warring in his chest. Curiosity won, but that didn't mean he had to be _completely_ reckless, just mostly. He got up and left the living room in favor of his bedroom, and began searching through the drawers of his study desk. Of the few possessions he'd brought with him from Japan, a good portion were mementos, things he'd been given or entrusted with to remember the bonds of friendship he'd forged over his year in Inaba. Yu touched each one as he sorted through them, until he found what he'd been searching for: a keychain.

It was an odd one, to be sure, and too heavy to actually serve its purported purpose. Sculpted from the colorful clay found in the Arts and Crafts department at Junes, it was shaped like a small tower of three television sets, stacked atop one another. A gift, ' _in case Sensei gets in over his head where we can't stop him'_ , said with a wink and a grin, from a too-beautiful blonde boy in a bear costume. It _might_ have been Teddie being prescient, but honestly, Yu had enough of a reputation for meddling that it was an easy enough guess to make.

Yu dutifully clipped the keychain to his waistband, then returned to the television screen and stuck his hand back in. Nothing grabbed him, and the screen was big enough—not the giant wall screens at Junes, certainly, but large enough to work with—so his head and shoulders followed.

The immediate good news was that he didn't get sucked (or kicked) in, and that there wasn't a precipitous drop in front of his entrance— in fact, the floor was right there beneath the screen. The _better_ news was that the inside of the TV wasn't a dark and swirling landscape drowning in fog, as it had been in Inaba. It _was_ spacious, though, perhaps moreso than he was used to, and with the ground so close Yu made a quick judgment call, and crawled the rest of the way through the screen. The TV—now displaying a hypnotic pattern of swirls in red and white—stayed where it was, mirroring its position in the real world. Mirrored was a good term for it, Yu realized— instead of abstract renditions of a television studio, he found himself standing in a faded, barely-there version of Mr Wallis' own house. The walls were actually translucent, letting Yu get a good look at the world outside. The sight made him back up a step on reflex, before he gathered his wits and walked outside.

The entire city was here. It was… wrong, in many ways, and not a true copy of Brockton Bay. Significantly more dark alleyways, from what Yu could see, and quite a bit more mazelike than it should have been. There were odd landscapes on the horizon, too, like a castle of iron looming over the downtown area, or the far-too-large castle gate that bridged one tower on the mainland, and another out at sea. Had it been like this in Inaba, too? Yes and no, Yu decided. He'd seen parts of Inaba in the TV world, some more true-to-life than others, but the whole year the town had been mired in a deep fog, particularly in this other world, and it had been impossible to see more than a few feet without some of Teddie's special glasses. Here the air was clear, though laden with an exaggerated stench of sea salt and pollution. It made Yu wish for something to cover his nose and mouth with.

A noise drew Yu's attention, the familiar groans putting him on high alert. From the street outside, an amorphous black blob crawled towards Mr Wallis' house, and it made a burbling noise when it spotted him, despite a lack of visible eyes. The shadow rushed forward. Yu didn't even get to see what form it took: the power inside him was at his fingertips, far closer and more eager than in the real world. Yu spoke a word, and the explosion that resulted blasted the shadow to mere stains on the walls. Yu felt an echo of satisfaction from the sea of his soul.

So, the power of his Persona was still in top form. Good to know. Truthfully, it felt good to call upon it again. Sure, it was always _there_ , this fierce and multi-faceted thing inside him, but the passive support of that strength had a different feeling from actively drawing it out to do battle. Yu took a cautious look at the streets outside, then eyed the city's skyline and labyrinthine paths. He could just barely make out squiggles of motion here and there— more shadows. Moving collections of negative sentiments. They'd been numerous in sleepy little Inaba… in a city like Brockton Bay, so many times larger and so beset by crime and poverty?

Yu left the faded doorway and crawled back through the television screen, into Mr Wallis' living room. It would be foolish to explore that world without any backup, and suicidal without any equipment. And, Yu reminded himself, as he sat back down on the couch, he didn't have a reason to do so, either. That didn't mean a reason didn't exist—he had been given this power for a purpose—but he didn't know of it. He hadn't seen any ethereal blue doors around yet, either…

A few more minutes of mulling over his thoughts, and Yu dug his bus pass from his bag. He could still get to the Library and back before Mr Wallis returned from work.

* * *

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 **Subject:** Questions

1)Have you checked your TV? I found out it still works here, but it's not foggy.

2)Any idea how I can get in touch with the others? I want to talk about this.

* * *

Naoto hadn't been online when he'd mailed her, and she didn't show up before his time with the computer cubicle was over, so Yu went back to Mr Wallis' house. Just because there was an insanely dangerous alternate dimension nearby didn't mean he could skip doing his homework. Speaking of— around 11:00, Mr Wallis came home to resume work, without mentioning Yu's sudden decision to not attend school. Arcadia must not have called him, then. Yu hadn't been sure if they would or not. He didn't doubt that they would object if he didn't show up at all, but for now, it seemed he didn't need to worry much.

Which was good, because now he couldn't seem to _stop_ worrying. Had the murders started up again? In a city this big, would anyone even notice strange disappearances if they had?

Around 3 in the morning, Yu could take it no longer. He crept out of his bedroom, past the closed door to Mr Wallis' room, and to the TV. He found the power button by touch, and _immediately_ slammed the -Vol button until the screen displayed Mute. Mr Wallis did have basic channels, as he'd thought, and after a few clicks he found a news station. Yu watched in silence until a weather forecast finally popped up near the bottom of the screen. No rain, at least for the next few days— good. Tension bled out of Yu so quickly he felt dizzy.

The rules might be different here—probably were, if the other world wasn't filled with obscuring fog—but life-or-death habits don't just fade away. No rain on the horizon meant he could relax, at least a little bit. Yu sighed, feeling just a _little_ silly, but a thought occurred: if the TV world wasn't ruled by fog here, then what else was different? Yu glanced at the closed door of the master bedroom.

Just one peek wouldn't hurt.

Yu pressed a hand against the screen until it rippled, and let him pass through, just to his shoulders. The house was the same, if slightly darker from night, which eased Yu's anxiety for all of ten seconds before he spotted Mr Wallis.

The walls were translucent, so he could see the hazy outline of a person lying on the barely-there impression of a bed where Mr Wallis' room was. Standing over the bed and the sleeping figure within it, however, was Mr Wallis— or something that resembled him, at least. Even from here Yu could see the gleam of metal and the unsettling shapes of wires and tubes, like it was more machine than a person. He couldn't see its eyes, though… a Shadow's eyes glowed gold, Yu had never seen an exception, but the only hint of the color on this Shadow was a key, hanging from a cord around its neck.

Yu squinted— the Shadow's lips looked like they were moving. Like it was talking, whispering something. He couldn't hear from here, and he was not risking getting closer. Not yet. Not until he had a better idea of what was going on. Yu pulled back out of the screen, and waited for the display to return to blank stillness.

* * *

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 **Subject:** Questions 2

3) How can I get a sword through the mail?

(P.S. I need Yosuke to mail me a sword. I think I found trouble.) 


	7. October (3)

**October (3)**

Finding the article that Dragon had spoken of took a few minutes of searching, as Armsmaster couldn't remember which publication she'd sourced it from and she wasn't around to ask, but once found it was easy enough to recognize. Naoto Shirogane, colloquially referred to as 'The Detective Prince,' was a teenage girl who'd been recognized both as a prodigy, and as the product of a dynasty; the Shirogane family had churned out detectives and private investigators with international renown. The reason the article had caught Dragon's attention was that, about four months ago, Detective Shirogane had come out openly as a parahuman. She hadn't joined or started a Sentai team or even taken up a pseudonym, just continued doing her chosen line of work— though now with some distance from local law enforcement, and in exchange taking on parahuman-related cases. Armsmaster could respect that kind of dedication, even moreso when combined with a relevant quote from an interview; it was suspected that Shirogane possessed a Thinker rating, given her service record at such a young age, but her response resonated with Armsmaster.

Translated in a sufficiently dramatic fashion from Japanese, it read: "What meager times are these, that intelligence and deductive reasoning are so rare that they must be supernatural."

"Oh, the Shirogane article again?" Dragon's voice piped up from his nearby laptop; he'd read the quote aloud, and she must have just re-connected.

"Mhm. Confirming a few things about Yu."

"Huh? What about me?"

"No, not— I mean my nephew-in-law." Armsmaster clicked away from the article, and started going through supplementary sources. Japan didn't use the same ranking system as the Protectorate, but from the looks of it, Shirogane was a Blaster with a side of Brute, capable of generating black or white, oddly silent explosions that didn't affect inorganic matter. "I caught him assembling a dossier on the Brockton Bay capes."

"What?"

"Mhm. He said Naoto Shirogane sent them to him— looks like the international database files. And… huh." Over the past year, Detective Shirogane had indeed been in Inaba, in the Yamanashi prefecture, investigating a serial murderer. So it seemed that Yu's story checked out, except… Armsmaster frowned. Shirogane had only come out as a parahuman a few months ago, and just from first impressions, didn't strike Armsmaster as the type to try and hide a useful ability like that for long. The odds were good that Yu had known her already when she Triggered.

"Something up?"

"No, nothing." None of his business, at any rate. Armsmaster saved a quick copy of the relevant pages he was looking at, then closed the browser and brought up his itinerary instead. It was midmorning, and he'd already had a workout and a shower, caught up with Militia regarding some operations reports, delivered a briefing to the Director, and sent a couple emails to the Tinker Oversight Committee for himself and Kid Win. Armsmaster cast a satisfied glance over his schedule. Nothing to do with the press today, good— just four patrols, a couple hours blocked out for paperwork, and tinkering, so it looked to be a pleasant day ahead. Although, there was a non-critical note attached to the date. He clicked on it, but the memo just read, '30 days.' Thirty days? Thirty days until _what_?

The memory fell into place and his eyes widened. Thirty days _from_ what: it had been a month since Akane had contacted him.

...he wondered how Allen was doing.

Akane hadn't mentioned a prognosis when they'd spoken. Maybe she hadn't had one at the time. He had no idea when Allen had been diagnosed in the first place— and that was deliberate, he remembered. He could call, but— should he? It was true that Colin hadn't really made himself very available or approachable these past years, but he still mailed cards for birthdays and Christmas. Allen must have had a reason, and…

"Colin? Earth to Colin?" Dragon's spoke from a nearby screen, her avatar's eyebrows drawn together in concern, and Armsmaster snapped back to awareness. He sucked a shallow breath past the tightness that was clawing at his ribs and starting to squeeze his lungs. His itinerary was still displayed on his HUD, now with a red blinking line to chastise his inattention as minutes crawled by, his schedule unconfirmed and work not done. "Are you alright?"

"Fine— I'm fine. Lost focus for a moment." Armsmaster hurriedly dismissed the scheduling program and reached across his desk for some tools— any tools. Engine modifications for his motorcycle, the early design docs for a monomolecular edge field for his halberd, code upon code upon code for the combat predictive algorithms gradually pushed away his anxiety and replaced it with purpose.

After a couple of hours, when the time for lunch rolled around, he risked a moment of detraction from his tinkering to bring up his scheduling program again. He flipped to November and circled a date— '60 days.'

* * *

Dennis caught up to Yu in World Studies class, walking over to his desk before the bell officially rang. "Hey, looking better. You seemed pretty upset at lunch yesterday."

"Mm. I am still upset, but for now I will focus on other things." Yu nodded to himself, then sighed. "Like finding a job. I cannot be hired on a visa, so I am not sure where to look for employment."

"So, like… chores, basically? Mowing lawns, walking dogs, that sort of thing?"

"That would be fine."

"Surprised you don't just ask your parents or your cactus for an allowance." Dennis flopped into the seat next to him, as its usual occupant had vanished in pursuit of a restroom.

"I do not want to. Besides, I like working." Dennis gave him an incredulous stare, to which Yu only smiled wider. "Last year I managed to work at seven different jobs. I want to break that record."

"Sev— quit pulling my leg, man!" Dennis laughed, saying, "At least not at once, right? Pretty sure even Armsmaster's not _that_ much of a workaholic. Maybe."

"Who?"

"Oh, local Protectorate leader— you don't have the PRT in Japan or anything, right? Lemme see if I can find a pic…" The redhead pulled out his phone and started tapping at it. After a few moments he made a pleased sound and turned the screen towards Yu. The picture displayed looked like a promotional poster for a movie, with several costumed heroes all standing together. This was the local team? They all looked so different from one another.

Yu eyed the heroes carefully, then pointed at the one with a V-shape on his chest. "That is Armsmaster, then?"

"Wha— no, that's Velocity!"

"Ohh. So, this one?"

"And that's _Assault_! How do you mistake Armsmaster for _either_ of them?"

"You said he was the leader, right? They are the only ones wearing red."

That sent Dennis into a fit of laughter, making heads turn towards them both as the boy wheezed and tried to contain himself. "Oh man. Ohhh man. That's great. No, Armsmaster's the Robocop-looking guy with the halberd."

"I see." In retrospect, he _was_ the one standing in the center. "The shape of his helmet is very Sentai. I approve."

Dennis snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth to hide the noise. He managed to regain his composure quickly enough, just in time for the bell to ring and the instructor to enter the room. Dennis slid out of his confiscated desk to return to his own, but paused to address Yu one more time. "Hey, wanna check out Lord's Market later? Chris is getting a game or something, but I'm just there to window shop."

Well, why not? Yu wanted to see more of the city. He nodded, and Dennis flashed him a thumb's up.

* * *

The Lord's Street Market was, as Chris explained, a vast array of open-air stalls peddling all manner of goods. It was the busiest over the weekends, but there was still plenty of activity to be found during the week. Food trucks and hand-crafted items he'd expected, but there were also clusters of people hosting what amounted to high-traffic garage sales. Chris was after a portable game system being sold in one of the more conventional stores lining the street, but Yu was more than happy enough to let the brunette go about his business in the game shop while he and Dennis browsed the riot of color outside. Yu gravitated towards the junk wares and garage sale-expies pretty much immediately. Items with a history were far more interesting.

While there were a rather alarming number of knives of all sorts on display, none of them really caught Yu's interest—he was more practiced with longer blades, anyway—and though there were some bandannas and similar articles that might serve his purpose in the TV world, they were too overpriced to bother with. But tucked away on one table, wedged between a stack of beat-up board games and a selection of books—Yu felt a skipped beat thud in his chest—there was a small rectangle of heartrending blue. A deck of cards, held together by a rubber band.

Yu caught the eye of the table's vendor and tapped a finger against the Tarot deck. He felt a jolt like static electricity. "How much?"

* * *

"You overpaid for those, definitely," Dennis told him, shaking his head at Yu as they walked back towards the game store. "Fifteen bucks for playing cards? Highway robbery, I can't believe that guy. _Or_ you."

"These cards are not a toy."

Chris caught the comment as he pushed open the game store's door. "Got what I need! What's up, now?"

"Yu got robbed."

"What?!"

Yu just shook his head. "You are wrong— these are worth the cost, and more."

"What is? A deck of cards?" Chris moved a bit closer, and peered at the blue-backed cards in Yu's hand. "What are you going to do with those, then?"

"I do not know yet. But…" Yu grinned, and shuffled the deck in a practiced motion. He drew a card without looking and held it up to Chris. "This is your card."

"If that's a magic trick, you're supposed to have me pick a card _first_ , Yu."

"No," Yu insisted, his grin gone as quickly as it had appeared. "This _is_ your card."

His classmates exchanged a baffled glance with each other. Yu just smiled, and shuffled The Magician back into the deck. "Never mind it for now."

* * *

Yu took the scenic route back to Mr. Wallis's house, wanting some time alone to sort out his thoughts. The Tarot deck he kept in his pocket; it was warm. His thoughts kept circling back into memory, and to questions he couldn't know the answer to. There was something strange in Brockton Bay, and that strangeness drew Yu in like an inexorable tide. He still hadn't seen any doors to the Velvet Room, and the key was missing, but now this? A deck of cards in the very same shade… Yu still remembered the first time he'd ever seen them.

Igor was almost more of a caricature than a man, by the look of him. Bloodshot eyes and a too-wide grin, hooked nose almost as long as his face, gloved fingers like the legs of spiders. Kind and lovely Margaret at his side, sitting in the stretched limo on crushed velvet seats, as they drove through endless, endless fog. A wave of the old man's hand and the cards spread themselves, but he flipped each one individually, always giving them the attention they deserved.

Yu opened his eyes and blew out a breath, and watched his breath steam in the cold autumn air. His time as a Guest of the Velvet Room was over, and a part of him truly worried he'd never see the old man or Margaret ever again. His journey was over, Yu had fulfilled his promise, and there was no one here to bind him to his word again. There was no fortune reading spread for him. And yet…

The click of nails on pavement and heavy panting caught Yu's attention, and he turned to spot the blunt-faced young woman walking down the sidewalk, not far ahead. He waved to her, and she slowed down as she and her dogs approached him. "Hello again," he called. "How is the stray dog?"

The young woman eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then grunted. "Fine. Gaining weight again. Had fleas, I took care of it."

And yet— was there _really_ any such thing as coincidence?

Yu paused, considered for a moment, and decided. The Tarot deck in his pocket felt heated. He touched it with a finger and felt that same jolt again. "My name is Narukami Yu. Do you want any help?"

The blunt-faced girl gave him something of an odd look. "Bitch," she swore, then at his blank look gave an exasperated sigh through her nose. "Call me Bitch. And I don't need any help."

...well, if that's what she wanted. "Pleased to meet you, Bitch. And I did not think you _needed_ help, but if you _wanted_ help, I am offering it."

That odd look again, as if she was trying to puzzle him out. "Help with what?"

"I suppose… whatever. I want to thank you for taking care of the dog, so if there is something you would like help with—even just getting home—I can do so."

"You already thanked me."

"Words can be cheap. Actions matter." They weren't always cheap, but at least from first impressions, Bitch seemed like the sort to appreciate an honest gesture over an honest sentence. Yu watched her rub her dog's ears as she considered. He repeated the words to himself, in silence— there was no one left to say them anymore, _except him_.

 **I am thou…**

"Fine. I keep a shelter for dogs. You wanna shovel shit, you're free to do it." Well… even if she wasn't joking, he'd done worse jobs. She was probably joking. It'd have to be a very large shelter to need a shovel, right?

 **...and thou art I.**

"I have a few hours. Lead the way."

 **Thou hast established a new bond, and shall be blessed when joining thy strength to the Hermit Arcana.**


	8. October (4)

**October (4)**

Bitch was not, in fact, joking.

Yu had worked unpleasant jobs in the past, though perhaps none quite as… base. Still, he had enough discipline to keep himself from complaining, especially given that he'd volunteered. Bitch was absorbed in feeding, grooming, and playing with the vast array of canines she'd amassed in the overgrown lot and abandoned warehouse she'd led him to, so Yu kept conversation to a minimum and simply cleaned where she pointed. It gave him time to muse on the situation, anyway. After all— this was clearly not a pet shelter.

Sure, it was by the strict letter of the term. There were pets here and they were being sheltered and cared for. But it wasn't a business or a nonprofit center by any stretch of imagination. An abandoned lot, tucked as far away from main roads and foot traffic as possible, with the few windows in the old cement brick of a building boarded over? Nu uh. This place took no customers and paid no taxes. Bitch didn't even have _electricity_ out here, though she'd arranged a water source by way of scavenged garden hoses.

The whole arrangement begged the question: just what was she doing with all these dogs? Yu had no idea. No good ideas, at any rate. He just didn't know enough about Bitch or this city to make any judgment calls, and what he'd seen of the young woman told him that pressing for answers was not the best course of action— not now. Conclusion reached, Yu finished up putting away the brooms and (yes, really) shovel he'd been supplied with, and walked over to where Bitch was standing in the open, grassier part of the empty lot, presiding over her four-legged domain. She looked over at him as he approached.

"I finished sweeping inside, Bitch." Why _was_ that her chosen moniker, anyway? One more question on the pile.

Bitch grunted, and craned her neck to see around him, peering at the open loading dock Yu had just left and the relatively clean floors within. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

Before Yu could decide if he wanted to risk asking for the next task, Bitch reached into her oversize jacket and pulled out a crumpled wad of green paper, then thrust it out towards Yu. He managed a thank-you on reflex, even as he identified the American money. 20, 10— 50 dollars in total? She was _paying_ him? "That's it."

"I see. Do you want me to come back? I could use the work." Bitch pursed her lips, thinking, then nodded. _She was paying him_! A couple quick, no-nonsense questions and Yu had a rough schedule laid out for his assistance. Fierce, satisfied joy kept Yu's head held high as he was dismissed from the dog shelter and let back into the roughshod landscape of Brockton Bay. He grinned all through the bus ride back to the stop nearest Mr. Wallis' house.

Part-Time Job Count: 1. Yessssss.

Once he reached the property, he combed the outside of Mr. Wallis' house for a garden hose before he dared go inside. He did find one, and although it looked rather old and the rubber had started to crack it still did the job. Yu left his shoes on the front steps to dry as he went inside for a shower of his own. The day's success coupled with the emptiness of the house sparked a series of giddy thoughts:

Mr. Wallis didn't come home until around 11 pm. And while he'd _advised_ Yu of a curfew, it hadn't really been an _order_. The bus stop for this neighborhood was one of the later-running ones, with the last time at 10:30 at night. And this wasn't Inaba— Brockton Bay surely had a night life, with more activities than fishing and working a graveyard shift. As soon as he was clean and mostly dry, Yu put on his Yasogami High jacket, stuck the Tarot cards into the inside pocket (yeah, these were never leaving his person again), and combed his hair.

Look out, world: Narukami Yu is going out tonight.

* * *

"So, I'll ask straight out: do you think Triumph shouldn't have graduated?"

"What?" Armsmaster turned his head to regard Miss Militia, who'd fallen in step beside him as he walked through the PRT building on the way to the garage. He was headed out to patrol in 10 minutes, his thoughts occupied by his planned route and the question caught him a bit off-guard. "No, why?"

"So you do?"

"I just said no. He turned 18, he graduated. I suppose leaving him in the Wards until the school year was finished wouldn't have hurt, but by that point a couple more months wasn't going to help, either." Militia gave him a distinctly sideways look from over her bandanna. "What's this about?"

"You've shown a distinct lack of support for him."

"I've given him the same support I give everyone else."

"A distinct lack."

"That's patently untrue, Militia." He shot the woman a glare, though the irritation was short-lived, quickly squelched by the mix of assurance and resignation that defined his relationship with Miss Militia. If one didn't count Assault's needling (and Armsmaster did not), she was really the only one of the local team that talked back to him, challenging his opinions instead of his authority. It was oddly refreshing, and Armsmaster considered it one of the perks of Militia being on the team.

The downside, of course, was having to put up with her talking back to him.

"You were pretty cross with him on the last meth lab bust."

"There was a miscommunication."

"I saw the performance review you wrote."

"There's nothing malicious about honesty. He needs improvement and I said so. He's not in the Wards anymore, he doesn't get his hand held."

" _And_ you skipped out on his graduation ceremony," she pointed out. "If you're not actually trying to insult him, you could be doing a better job of it."

So _that's_ what this was about. Armsmaster felt irritation flare in earnest, and he frowned. This wasn't the first time she'd brought it up, either. She'd already made her displeasure known, so why wasn't she satisfied? It wasn't like complaining was going to undo his decision. "I was there to swear him in, as you well know. My presence beyond that was not necessary."

"Fostering a sense of unity and camaraderie in your team sounds pretty necessary."

"All the more reason to keep my distance, then," he said, as they reached the garage and his motorcycle. He was officially out of time for this conversation, and long since out of patience. It wasn't like he'd had much choice in the matter. "I'm not here to be his friend, Militia, I'm his boss now."

"Sounds like an excuse. What was so important you couldn't stick around to congratulate him?"

"Diagnostics and repair on some tech." ...shit. If he'd given a more precise answer at the time, he couldn't remember it. Was she fishing for an M/S test? That would be the last thing he needed. "What does it matter?"

"Exactly my point, Armsmaster. What matters—"

"What _doesn't_ matter is this conversation, Militia. I'm not going to start coddling Triumph just because you have empty nest syndrome." Armsmaster knew he'd made a mistake before he even finished the sentence, and the sudden widening of Miss Militia's eyes (and the reflexive twist of her power into something semiautomatic) just underscored that it was _time to leave_. Now, before he managed to make this even worse. "I'm late for a patrol. I suggest you get back to your own duties as well."

Armsmaster gunned the motorcycle's engine to preempt any cutting last words, and Miss Militia left the garage, seething. He was surely going to pay for that, somehow. But what was he supposed to do? He knew he wasn't wrong, Triumph really did need to spend more energy on fine-tuning uses for his power instead of relying on the same few tricks. And it really wasn't Armsmaster's place to just _be nice_ , not when he could push for improvement instead. It was fine that Miss Militia disagreed, but she didn't need to badger him about it.

Armsmaster grit his teeth, and tried to focus on his patrol route. Going in circles and uselessly fretting wasn't going to accomplish anything. It was a pretty quiet patrol, which didn't help, but he got through it.

Once he finished the assignment and got back to his office, a cursory check of his gear found the Missed Call light on his civilian phone. The number looked familiar, right on the tip of his tongue, so he removed his helmet and pressed the Call Back button. After a single ring, the owner picked up. Armsmaster's heart and every scrap of salvaged mood immediately dropped into his stomach.

" _Brockton Bay Police Department, how may I help you?"_

* * *

Tall buildings dotted with lights, the smells of exhaust and greasy food, the droning blare of traffic both motor and pedestrian— even with the grime and unkempt areas, Yosuke would be so jealous of Yu right now. Cities were kind of amazing. Yu had lived in several already, and as charming as Inaba was, the density of people and buildings in Brockton Bay was outright nostalgic. And now that he had a potential source of income, a few familiar faces who could be friends, and a growing list of places he wanted to explore, Yu was finally starting to feel a bit at home. He still hadn't found a fishing spot, but he had listened to the chatter around him as he walked and overheard mention of a burger joint he definitely needed to find, as well as a nightclub that sounded interesting. He wasn't sure what the word 'palanquin' meant, but that was all the more reason to investigate, right?

More immediately, a brief stop at a convenience store landed him a temporary solution to his communication issues: pre-paid phone cards. International calls weren't cheap, he assumed because of the Endbringers knocking out satellites, but the price for 30 minutes wasn't unbearable, and he had the money for it on him right now, so he picked up a card and a soda and kept an eye out for phone booths. Brockton Bay's infrastructure looked old enough there should still be some around.

He found one, and scratched the bar code to visibility on the card with one hand while he fumbled for his cell in the other. Naoto he could reach online easily enough, and she was likely to be working—it was evening here, so it was day in Japan—as well as Yukiko in the inn and Kanji at his mom's textile shop. So the easiest option for getting hold of his friends was probably Yosuke, because even if he was working or in class, he'd be the first to dash away to answer a call. Plus, Yosuke would be able to quickly talk to Teddie, and Yu had some questions that the bear might be able to answer. Thus decided, Yu dialed in the phone card's code, then his friend's number. There was a long silence before the phone rang, but once it did, it was quickly answered.

" _Hello?"_

"Yosuke, it's me!" Yu was sure his smile was audible, even from Japan.

" _Hey partner! Oh man, didn't think we'd hear from you any time soon! How's it going?"_

"Good but weird, is that an option?"

" _For you? Pretty sure that's the default, man. Anyway, where are you? Naoto sent me a few texts, but uh…"_

"A city called Brockton Bay. I'm sure Naoto can tell you about it, I'm sorry but I don't have time right now to go over it. I've got some questions I need to ask Teddie and everyone, can you relay them?"

" _Sure thing, I can get everyone together tomorrow. What's up?"_ Yu recounted what he'd seen in the TV, speaking rapidly in Japanese. He heard Yosuke whistle when he was done. " _Dang. Okay, that is weird. Never heard of a Shadow being around without its other half there, y'know?"_

"Exactly, that's why I wanted to check with Teddie. If anyone knows what's up, he would."

"Hey buddy, get off the phone!" Someone behind him tapped roughly on Yu's shoulder, but he covered the receiver with one hand and shushed them. He still had 10 minutes, the angry man could wait his turn.

" _I'll ask as soon as I can. Hey, what's that website you're on with Naoto?"_

"Thanks, Yosuke. It's—"

The line abruptly went dead in his ear as a calloused hand took hold of the phone cord and tore it from its mooring in the body of the payphone. There was a smattering of laughter to accompany the act. Yu silently put the phone back into its now-useless cradle and turned around, coming face to leering face with a bald man with a tattoo-covered neck, and his several friends. Seriously? Both Naoto and Mr. Wallis had said the city had a gang problem, but _seriously_? "I was on the phone," Yu said, anger keeping his voice tight.

"No shit. Heard you making that ching-chong bullshit. This is America, speak goddamn English!"

"I was on the phone," Yu repeated carefully. "You interrupted my call. It was important."

"Oh yeah? What'cha gonna do about it, slant eyes?" What indeed. He'd had a few encounters with thugs already, but this was a larger group—Yu counted at least six at a quick glance—and from the dossier he'd been given he felt confident that these men were members of the 'E88' gang. He'd never dealt with a real gang before, at least not in any significant numbers. But he knew someone who had. So the question became: what would Kanji do in this situation?

Yu squared his shoulders, looked the angry bald man in the eye, and enunciated clearly: "I will beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker."

There was laughter and the sound of a switchblade. Yu grabbed the man in front of him by his shoulders, then picked him up and swung him into the group like a club.

Another thing he'd learned from Kanji: on his honor as a man, it was important to keep his promises.


	9. October (5)

**October (5)**

There was a long, uncomfortable moment where Armsmaster seriously questioned if he could, in good conscience, let Yu continue to cool his heels at the local holding cell until his shift was done for the day. He concluded that no, he could not: aside from the obvious of this being Brockton Bay and the local police departments being only marginally more safe to be in than anywhere else, Armsmaster hadn't really been given any reason to suspect that Yu was the type to need such a measure of discipline. Admittedly, he could be wrong, but Akane had vouched for him and what little he'd seen of him suggested that Yu was more the quiet, bookish type, not someone who got into trouble.

Which meant… leaving work at seven instead of eleven. It was enough to make him wince. There was a lot he could do in four hours. A lot that he _needed_ to do, and now wouldn't be able to. Four more hours lost, four more hours fallen behind. Armsmaster grimaced, then set to getting his armor off and stored away properly.

If this was over something petty, he was going to be _pissed_.

* * *

Perhaps "going to be" was an incorrect tense to use, because by the time Colin got to the specific department he'd been directed to, he'd managed to work up to a nice, tranquil fury, enough to put the officers in the entrance lobby on edge when he walked inside. It meshed nicely with the vise wrapped around his skull, squeezing at his temples and very nearly making him squint around the pain. Another headache, how completely unsurprising. He'd felt the pressure in his skull start almost as soon as he'd gotten his armor locked away. Usually, Colin could do some light tinkering, something familiar to the point of near mindlessness, until his head cleared, but that wouldn't be an option if he had to be home the whole evening. Hopefully he'd be able to focus on some computer work at least, or he was in for a long night.

He gave his name to the front desk, and after a few minutes of having to wait an officer arrived to escort him deeper into the building. It was Colin's first opportunity to ask, "So is this the part where you tell me what this is about? The officer on the phone didn't even want to tell me if I was being asked to _identify a body_ , until I forced the issue."

The officer gave him a look that might have been apologetic. "A fight broke out just downtown, here. Seems your nephew was jumped by some thugs. Nazi sympathizers, you know."

 _That_ put a quick jolt of adrenaline through his system. "Was he hurt?"

"He's not hurt, no…" The officer trailed off, not looking at Colin directly, and after another moment of walking he opened a door with a frosted pane of glass and gestured for Colin to go inside. Someone's office, not a waiting room for non-criminal detainees, and a building sense of confusion left Colin hesitating in the doorway. Behind the desk was a thin-faced woman with her hair in a bun; she rose to her feet and stepped quickly around the desk to offer a handshake.

"Mr Wallis, yes? I'm Melanie Reynolds, I'm a PRT consultant with the Brockton Bay Police Force."

Uh.

"...okay?"

"Please, take a seat." She made gestures at the chairs positioned across from her side of the desk, and said nothing more until he pulled one out and sat down. "Now, as I understand it, you're Yu Na— _Narukami's_ guardian, is that right?"

"Temporarily, yes," he said, carefully. "What is this about?"

The woman pursed her lips. "Well, your nephew was involved in an… incident earlier today. I want to be clear that he's not in any trouble, but there were a few concerns raised that I wanted to go over with you."

What. What is this. "What?"

"Mr. Wallis, you have to understand, it's not a sure thing, let me stress that. But given some of the witness reports and some circumstantial evidence… well, Mr Wallis, how much do you know about parahumans?"

"Is this some sort of _joke_?" That— what? What?! She _could not_ be serious. Was she implying _Yu_ was—

Ms Reynolds frowned a bit at his outburst. "No, sir. There's no need for alarm, please. A parahuman is just—"

"I _know_ what a parahuman is," he snapped. His temples throbbed with his heartbeat. "Get to the point. Why do you think Yu is a parahuman, _what happened_?"

"Sir, please calm down. Again, it's not a sure thing, you're going to need to discuss with with your nephew and the PRT, but—" Yu had apparently wiped the floor with a half-dozen grown men. They'd even found the start of bruises on his assailants in the shape of handprints. The fact that the attackers had weapons and Yu did not, along with several of them having history with the wrong side of the law, meant that Yu was not being considered for assault with a parahuman power. More conclusively, there'd been a cut in Yu's clothes, with a few drops of blood dried in the fiber and on his skin, but without a matching wound present. It was almost mind-boggling how they kept insisting on 'not a sure thing,' the only reasoning Colin could scramble together was wanting to avoid liability for a false positive.

Ms Reynolds kept talking, even handing him a few of the informational pamphlets the PRT had made for parents and new parahumans. For his part, Colin fell to silence and just… tried to process this.

So. There was a very real possibility that Yu had just Triggered. That was a thing. Colin sighed through his nose and ran a hand over his face— the PRT consultant finally stopped talking, and let him try to organize his thoughts. Now what? This was the sort of thing he left to Miss Militia and Velocity. They were good at this, good at talking to teenagers and parents and everything. Just what the hell was _he_ supposed to do about this? At least— the consultant was describing a basic Brute package, and those were _usually_ pretty quick Triggers, not from something ongoing, so… "He's not being charged, right? So he's okay to leave?"

"Yes, of course. Do you want to see him now, or…?" At his nod, Ms Reynolds stood and opened the door back up, then motioned to the same officer standing at parade rest just across the hall. This time, the officer took him to an open door, with another policeman standing guard outside it. Inside, Yu was sitting on a worn couch, idly toying with some blue playing cards. He certainly looked calm, and the teen glanced up when Colin approached, sliding the card deck into a pocket of his jacket.

Colin stood in silence for a moment, wishing desperately for a manual. "Are you alright?"

Yu nodded. "Yes, I am fine."

Simple enough. "Let's go home, then."

* * *

There was a very strained quality to Mr Wallis' silence as he drove. It was kind of making Yu a little nervous, and he watched the man carefully to try and get a feel for what he was thinking. Mr. Wallis had a tense jaw line, probably from clenched teeth, and his brow was pressed into a deep worry line. He was squinting a little, too, keeping a sharp focus on the road. It was an odd parallel, to be sure: the last time Yu's uncle had found him in a police station, it had been Uncle Dojima, and his frustration had been a quick and certain thing, very to the point. Mr Wallis was more of a stoic, apparently intent on keeping all thoughts to himself. If anyone was going to break the silence, it would have to be Yu. "I am sorry."

Mr Wallis glanced over at the passenger seat, apparently startled. "For what?"

"...for fighting? And being arrested."

"The police told me those men approached _you_ , and they had weapons. That true?"

"Yes?" Did that really change the outcome, though?

"Then you've got nothing to apologize for." Yu blinked. Twice. That was… He glanced at the clock above the car's radio— 9:38 PM. That meant he'd pulled Mr Wallis away from his work. He half expected the man to be seething. This was unexpected. He decided to risk poking the bruise, just a little.

"Did you have to leave work?"

 _That_ made Mr Wallis grimace, and Yu regretted the question when he saw the older man's everything tense up even more. "Yes."

"Will you be in trouble because of it?"

"No." Mr Wallis stifled a sigh. "Look— we'll talk in a bit. Let me focus on driving."

The rest of the ride was quiet, and short. Mr Wallis drove them home, parked the car, and led Yu inside. He stopped not far inside, and looked between the couch in the living room and the small table in the kitchen, apparently at a loss of just where to go. Yu took the decision out of his hands and pulled up a chair at the table. Mr Wallis followed, and sat across from him, the man taking a moment to press his fingers against his temples. "Okay— they said you were attacked. And you're not hurt?"

"No, I am not injured."

"The police said that you might have been, but that you're not hurt _now_. And that you were throwing around guys way bigger than you are." Oh. Yu tried not to fidget, but he didn't think he succeeded entirely. He was a lot tougher than he had been a year ago, but he wasn't invulnerable— at least, not without focusing on a Persona that _was_. He had been hoping nobody would notice the pinprick he'd gotten from at least one of the bald men, from a switchblade shoved between his ribs, and the victorious rush of energy Izanagi-no-Okami had provided him once he'd felled his opponents had more than made up for it. Mr Wallis surprised him by pressing both hands flat against the table and looking into his eyes. "Yu, this is important. If you have powers, I _have_ to know about it."

He didn't really think that they were the same thing, this power and what Mr Wallis was asking for; just a feeling he had, a heart-deep certainty, and one he trusted. But it was close enough. "Yes, sir."

Mr Wallis exhaled slowly. "Alright. Did you get them today?"

"No. Last year, in Inaba," Yu said, and curiously he saw some of the tension leech out of the line of Mr Wallis' shoulders. He felt his own rise up, just a little. What had happened in Inaba, with the TV World and the murders and the kidnappings… it wasn't something he really wanted to share. Nothing against Mr Wallis, but— it was personal. "There were… troubles. I do not want to talk about it."

He was a little afraid Mr Wallis would push the issue, but instead he surprised him again, this time with a single nod, and a spoken truth: "It's okay. I understand."

Mr Wallis sat back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, and he looked away again. "There's things you should— this isn't a good city to be a teenage parahuman in. Probably why there are so many of them. I can go over some of it with you. Later," he amended.

"Yes. It is late," Yu agreed, and glanced once at the clock on the wall. "Are you going to work on your computer now?"

"...later. I'm— going to lay down for a bit. You should get to bed." And just like that, the wall of silence was back, rough and granite and uncomfortable. Mr Wallis bid him goodnight, and retreated to his room— didn't even set up his laptop at his work desk in the hall. It left Yu with a strangeness that he wasn't sure how to articulate. Something had changed.

Yu went to his room, and folded up his clothes. The Tarot deck was still in his pocket, the cards warm under his fingers. After a moment's consideration, he sat on his bed with them and shuffled the desk slowly. Something was different. It wasn't just the contrast between Mr Wallis and Uncle Dojima, wasn't just the situation or the city. There was something in the hesitancy of Mr Wallis' every motion, the ring of truth behind near-halting words. Something had changed, and Yu wanted to know what. He stopped shuffling the deck, and drew the top card. Huh. Fitting.

"I am thou," Yu murmured, and slid The Emperor back into the deck, "and thou art I."


	10. November (1)

**November (1)**

The report from the police department was in his inbox the next morning, as he'd thought it would be. Incidents involving parahumans had to be reported to the PRT, something that the regular law enforcement didn't seem to approve of. Jurisdictional disputes, for the most part, though on cases like this Armsmaster could understand some of the grumbles about privacy violations. It probably hadn't even occurred to Yu to ask for a mask, or to request a pseudonym.

Armsmaster opened the report up to editing, fiddled a bit with the timestamps for such, and then carefully combed over the document and removed every instance of Yu's name. The police would still have his statement and all that, but the PRT would be getting yet another addition to the box of 'unidentified parahuman, name withheld' reports. One of the last things Armsmaster needed was the PRT knocking on _his own door_ , trying to pitch the Wards program when one, Yu was a foreign national and unless there were some curiously specific clauses he was unaware of, not eligible anyway; and two, that sort of decision needed Yu's parents involved, not Armsmaster. Best to just avoid the whole tangled mess from the start, if at all possible.

* * *

For Yu, life proceeded much as it had been, with the exception of Mr Wallis being open to conversation in a limited quantity. He didn't want to speak while he was working, but he didn't object to Yu grabbing his attention before he could set up his computer. Yu felt like he was starting to get an idea of how to navigate Mr Wallis, though not as quickly as he'd like. The older man dismissed or ignored general statements or sentiments ("How was your day?") but would respond to more direct inquiries ("Are you working on the same project tonight as yesterday?"). He was also, once Yu got a feel for the unstated rules that governed Mr Wallis' idea of being helpful, surprisingly accommodating. He had less than zero interest in helping Yu with his studies, because that was something Yu was meant to handle by himself; but if there was something Yu could not be expected to understand or be able to deal with, then as soon as it was brought up Mr Wallis would make it a priority to rectify the issue.

That was the catch, though— Yu had to bring it up first. Mr Wallis seemed to have trouble anticipating needs, rather than reacting to them. The exception to this rough guideline was the first, inevitable conversation on what Mr Wallis expected from him in regards to Yu having powers. Namely, _don't go looking for trouble_. If trouble went looking for Yu, that was another story, but Mr Wallis' advice was to disengage and avoid conflict if at all possible.

"You can't overestimate yourself," he warned Yu, "and I know that's easy to say, but it happens all the time. New capes in general, but Brutes in particular—ah, that's parahumans who are tougher, or heal fast, or physically stronger, that sort of thing—they rush in because they haven't found their limits yet, so they assume there isn't one. You should always try to take the smarter option, alright?"

"I understand, Mr Wallis."

"Good," he grunted, in the middle of setting up his laptop. "What even happened, anyway?"

Yu was still a little embarrassed about losing his temper like that, but the man had asked, so he recounted the confrontation. Mr Wallis turned away from him at the end of it and was quiet for a long moment. Yu felt guilt start to grow heavy in his chest. "...did you really?"

"Yes, I did as I said I would-" And the guilt evaporated in an instant as Yu caught the slight upward tick of his guardian's mouth, near-hidden by the goatee. Was— was he trying not to laugh?

Mr Wallis turned even further away for a moment, trying to compose himself, before just as suddenly turning back to face Yu with a serious tone and expression. "I do not approve of that course of action," he lied, and left Yu wondering if this was some quirk specific to Mr Wallis, or if he'd stumbled across a recognized pass-time of this city. Maybe it was both.

...he was going to send mail to Naoto, and ask her to thank Kanji for being such a good role model. He was sure Yukiko would make sure they both survived the aftermath.

* * *

Not counting the usual scuffles, it was a quiet week for Armsmaster. Lung hadn't burned anything down recently, which was always something to be thankful for, and no follow-up on the incident with Yu had reached him, so Armsmaster felt it was fine to relax on that front, a bit. The teenager seemed willing to actually follow his advice, instead of taking the usual young parahuman route and assemble a slapdash costume to go sneaking about at night in. It was a pretty gratifying change, and while he should talk to Yu about his future _eventually_ , the fact that Yu was being relatively sensible meant he wasn't a priority right now.

All of which was more than Armsmaster could say of his professional obligations to parahuman teenagers, unfortunately. The newest member of the Wards, a low-level Breaker named Shadow Stalker, had recently been cleared for public introduction and added to the team. Her power had some interesting applications, but first impressions from her new teammates had almost universally summarized her as 'abrasive.' That meant Armsmaster was going to be revising the patrol schedules on a regular basis, to get Shadow Stalker and the rest of the Wards used to each other, and to find the most and least synergistic team compositions. A minor irritation, in terms of his own time spent, but a necessary one, so he couldn't begrudge it too much.

He entered the Wards' Commons to deliver the latest revised schedule in time to hear a tortured moan from the direction of the couch. A quick investigation found Kid Win slumped over the coffee table with his head in his hands, with Vista patting him ineffectually on the shoulder. Armsmaster didn't see any injuries, so at least it wasn't an emergency, whatever it was. "What's wrong?"

"There is no God," Kid Win muttered. Vista sighed at his melodramatics.

"Kid took apart his new game system on accident. His life is over."

Aha. Armsmaster grimaced a bit, feeling a pang of sympathy. Tinkers can't have nice things— or at least, not for very long. They tended to disassemble and repurpose anything they could get their hands on, _especially_ when they were first starting out. Not to say that experienced Tinkers didn't _also_ cannibalize nearby technology when inspiration hit, but learning to manage those impulses was among the growing pains of being a Tinker. God only knew how many movie players, televisions, and radios Armsmaster had gone through over the years, and that wasn't counting other, less-quickly-replaced appliances.

"Unfortunate, but it is a learning experience. You'll just have to do better next time." Kid Win just made a miserable sound. Hopefully he'd take what comfort he could from the lesson, once he calmed down. Except then, Vista actually shot him a half-hearted glare and a frown.

"Jeeze, he gets it already, you don't have to make fun of him." What? He wasn't. That was not what he was doing.

"It's not a laughing matter, Vista," Armsmaster clarified, "and it's not an enjoyable lesson. But it's a necessary one." If Kid Win wanted to sulk for a bit, then that was his choice to waste time, and Armsmaster was not getting into an argument about any of this, especially not with a pair of teenagers. He walked away from the two kids on the couch, and ignored the irritated huff from Vista as he finished his original goal of pinning the new schedule to the corkboard on the far wall. There, errand complete. He could move on with his day, now.

Or he would have, if 30 minutes later Miss Militia hadn't walked into his office with a very familiar look on her face. Dammit. How did she just _know_?

* * *

He was still simmering about it hours later, as he pulled into his driveway. Once inside the house, he found Yu still awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a bunch of cards spread in front of him. He'd been doing that often, lately; not just playing with cards, but staying up late to greet Colin when he got home from work. He wasn't sure if that was odd behavior for a teenager. Or, well— staying up late was pretty normal, especially on weekends. But given that adolescents almost universally loved to sleep in, Colin wondered a bit if this habit was impacting Yu's school performance.

"Hello, Mr Wallis. Welcome back."

"Evening," he returned, then considered. He supposed he could just ask directly. "How's school going?"

Yu glanced up at him and smiled, apparently pleased with the question. "I think it is going well. I do not have much trouble with the material, though the literature classes I have to take slowly. I look forward to the mid-semester exams."

"Good to hear it."

"What about you, Mr Wallis?" Yu tilted his head a bit, and frowned. "You seem troubled. Was there a problem at work?"

Colin's first instinct was to balk—Yu didn't really need to know anything about his 'job'—but honest questions deserved honest answers. As long as he left out details, it should be fine. "I wouldn't call it a problem, exactly. A… junior in my department made a mistake, is all."

"I see. Did he need to be reprimanded?"

Colin shook his head, even as he was irked by the reminder. "No, nothing like that. It was a rookie mistake, happens all the time. The sooner he learns to avoid it, the better."

Yu made a thoughtful noise, and elected to follow him into the hallway-slash-living room, where his desk was set up against a wall. Yu leaned against the kitchen doorframe and watched Colin start to unpack his laptop for the night. "If it is a common mistake in your field, then I am sure your junior member must benefit from your experience."

Colin paused for a moment to try and untangle that sentence. "That's not really—no, not exactly. It's— this kind of thing is _so_ common, that he needs to learn how to deal with it _without_ my help. Otherwise, he won't learn how to avoid similar types of mistakes further down the line."

"Oh." Yu paused for a moment, then said, "So no one helped you with this error, when you were starting?"

Was he being snide? He didn't sound like it. "That's right. I learned through observation, and trial-and-error." True, he'd studied under Hero a bit, when the man was still alive, but he'd been the exception to _everything_ about Tinkers. If Hero had ever had trouble with idly dismantling anything expendable, he'd never heard about it. Besides, by then Colin had already learned the basics of What Not To Do in terms of leaving stray electronics within reach, and everything beyond that was a lifetime of adjusting and adding on new techniques.

"But… it would be helpful to your new employee to know, right?"

"That's not the point." Handing Kid Win the answers wouldn't help him, any more than Miss Militia's laser focus on 'team morale' would. Self-motivation was one of the most important parts of successful Tinkering. You couldn't just rely on the people around you to prop you up, they were

 _(unnecessary)_

not going to be around all the time. Learning to do things by yourself was essential. Why was that so hard for people to understand?

Ugh. He kind of regretted this whole conversation. He'd spent enough energy fretting about this earlier, bringing it back up again after a long day was starting to make his head hurt.

"Perhaps, but… you did not invent algebra, Mr Wallis." ...huh?

"What does that have to do with… anything?" Colin turned away from his still-dark screen to look over at Yu, confusion writ all over his face. Yu kept a serious expression on his own, without condemnation.

"You learned mathematics from a book in school. The numbers and equations were given to you, and then your teacher asked you to prove you could use them, correct? If everyone had to start with nothing, if they had to invent algebra, then we as a society would not see much progress. Perhaps this 'rookie mistake' follows a similar principle."

The words gave Colin pause, and he stopped to lean back in his chair to think it over. Yu, thankfully, stayed quiet and let him turn the metaphor over in his head for a bit, feeling the shape of it. Scaffolding—learning something, and then taking what you learn from that to learn something else, and so on— was the most basic level of the Tinker Cycle. As it should be, considering it was the basic principle behind any education. He was concerned that letting Kid Win skip bits of that foundation would only sabotage his Tinkering later on— but, if Yu's comparison was sound, then learning to _implement_ skills could take the place of _finding_ those skills, without weakening the end result.

And maybe it would give the Ward some _direction_ for once. Watching Kid Win flutter from one project to the next without ever finishing was almost physically painful.

"It's a fair point," he finally said, and glanced back over at Yu, still waiting patiently in the doorframe. "Thank you."

* * *

Yu brought his packed lunch to the cafeteria the next day, and eyed the different tables as he walked. Where did he still need to introduce himself? He'd been by the Band table earlier this week, to little fanfare, and looking around he thought he could identify an Athlete table, an Artist table, and a table of mostly girls clustered around a popular blonde with a sunny smile. There was always the Cape Geek table, but—

"But I'm saying, it's weird, right?"

"I'll say. Do you really have to do all this, just to keep from taking apart your alarm clock?"

"I don't know—I mean, it kinda makes sense when I think about it—but that's not what I mean."

—buuuuut it looked like Chris and Dennis were huddled together over a laptop, engrossed in some mystery. Yu casually shuffled a bit closer, any guilt over eavesdropping easily swept aside by intrigue. Neither looked up, his footsteps drowned out by the cafeteria's noise. Chris pawed at the laptop's scroll pad and pointed at the screen.

"I mean, _this_. This part right here."

"...did he _give you homework_? What the hell!"

"Right?!"

Well now. That was interesting, and as he'd previously decided: Yu did not believe in mere coincidence.


	11. November (2)

**November (2)**

There was rain in the forecast.

There didn't look to be a long stretch of it—at least not yet—but it was there, and any amount was enough to get Yu's attention. He told himself that there was no cause to worry, not yet, and it was _true_ , but… it didn't erase the edge of anxiety. Still, at this juncture, worrying would do nothing, so once the weather forecast was finished Yu shut off Mr Wallis' television and headed to school. He'd just have to keep an eye on things.

After work, of course.

* * *

Bitch always had something for him to do. Cleaning up after the dogs, obviously, but also things like scrubbing the water troughs, and stacking huge bags of dry pet food, and going over the chain-link fences to check for dug holes or bent areas— evidence or risks of escape attempts. Though, Yu wasn't sure any of Bitch's many dogs seemed to really want to leave, save perhaps in the heat of the moment to chase a rabbit, so maybe 'escape' was the wrong word. 'Engage in unsanctioned adventures,' more like.

After the dogs' needs were seen to, and after he'd put in a couple of shifts to prove he wasn't going to bite or anything, Bitch graciously permitted Yu to help with cleaning and repair of the non-dog areas of the abandoned warehouse. It had likely been an office at one point, half a story up and set into one of the corners of the building at large, and it contained evidence of a more humanoid sort of habitation. A mattress and blankets, for instance, and a scavenged chair. And then more blankets, for Bitch's personal entourage. Yu didn't know all of their names yet, but he did get to meet one directly: Brutus, a large fellow whom Yu assumed was Bitch's second-in-command. When she introduced them, Yu knelt down and held out a hand for the dog to sniff. "Hello, Brutus. Do you know how to shake?"

He heard a derisive sniff from Bitch. "Brutus, shake."

The dog raised a paw, which Yu gravely shook. "Yes, that is a shake. It is good to meet you, Brutus."

Loyal henchdogs aside, this whole setup was starting to make Yu very curious. Bitch seemed to have something like a residence here, and she wasn't opposed to fixing it up a bit provided the dogs came first. So if she was living _here_ , in an abandoned warehouse, where was she getting the money to buy all that dog food, or to pay him for that matter? _Where did she get so many dogs in the first place?_ It was time to ask. Yu waited until she'd declared him finished for the day first, though— if he got fired over this, he wanted to at least collect his pay.

"Bitch? May I ask a question?" She was sitting on a stack of tires, refereeing a mob of canines who had grouped up to play tug-o-war with a number of knotted ropes. She graced him with a sour expression when he approached, but nodded. "I am curious where you get so many dogs from. Are… are they _all_ strays?" The mere thought of this many tail-wagging, happy four-legged friends being on the streets was threatening to put a lump in his throat.

"Mm. Lot of 'em, yeah. I find some on the streets. Others, I take 'em from some of the shelters before they get killed for bein' there too long." Bitch made an angry sound in her throat. "And some are rescues."

"It sounds as though you rescue all of them, but what do you mean?"

"Ever hear of dog fighting?" She turned to look at him again, while he parsed out the phrase as best he could. She didn't mean just… normal squabbles, did she? He shook his head, and she made that angry sound again. "S'when assholes take dogs and force 'em to fight each other, so they can gamble. Usually starve the dogs too, try to make them mean."

Yu _had_ heard of cock-fighting, so he was familiar with the concept, but— _dogs_? He could feel blood drain out of his face. A wandering pug chose that moment to bump against his ankle; Yu bent down and picked the animal up. It snorkuffled at him with a gentle, walleyed stare. Blood rushed back up in anger. "That is horrible! Who would do that to a dog?"

Bitch bared her teeth a bit— if Yu felt angry over this injustice, she had to be furious. "Assholes, sick ones. Gangs around here do it, I bust 'em when I find them."

"You call the police about them?"

"Hell no. Half the cops are in on it, the other half would have the dogs killed, thinking once they get mean they can't be trained."

"...that is horrible," Yu repeated, at a loss for what else to say. _Half_ the police force was surely an exaggeration, but _any at all_ was intolerable. And that didn't even address the euthanasia issue. Yu gave the pug a few scratches behind the ears, then set it back down. What a sober task Bitch had chosen for herself, to want the unwanted. "Is there some way I can help?"

She frowned at him. "Already paid you today."

Not what he'd meant. Perhaps it was just too soon yet. "Alright. Oh— Bitch?" She grunted. "Do you have any friends who need things done, as well? I could use the work."

She frowned a bit harder, but after a moment to chew on the question, she huffed. "I can ask."

* * *

"Heeeeey, Armsy! Got a minute?"

Armsmaster halted on the way out of the cafeteria, where he'd ventured to in order to grab a quick drink. Assault only used nicknames when he wanted something. "No, but what is it?"

"Thanks, I know you're busy. Just a quick schedule thing, I need the 15th off."

Work schedules for a professional parahuman were a bit of an oddity. In Brockton Bay it was done jointly by Armsmaster and Director Piggot, partly because the Director had a very hands-on approach to her role as parahuman oversight, and partly because Armsmaster would just use the cut and paste functions in the scheduling document, so Assault could have just gone to Piggot for this— if he hadn't, it probably meant he'd already pissed her off this month. Or this was a snap decision and Armsmaster was the first to cross his path. Whichever was the case wasn't relevant for the moment: Armsmaster took a second to bring up the month's current schedule on his helmet's HUD.

Even after all this time, parahumans still occupied a somewhat haphazard area of labor laws and conventions. The Protectorate was paid salary, not by the hour, and weren't eligible for overtime— though hazard pay was unfortunately common. It was probably the only way the Protectorate could reasonably afford to have teams, even with the generous budget, because heroes were _technically_ on-call at all times. They were a sort of emergency response unit, but without the numbers to fill out alternating shifts, like police or firefighters. Individual cities usually adjusted time off and vacation policies as needed to reflect the workload and number of available parahumans. Brockton Bay, naturally, got the short end of the stick in many respects: the required number of work hours averaged at 65 per week, with one day of rest per week promised and a handful of others available to be requested per month. Assault and Battery tended to try and request the same days off in order to spend extra time together, but their regular days only matched up half the time— Armsmaster assumed because Battery needed a break now and then.

Checking the schedule, Armsmaster saw that Assault had taken three days on request last month, and already had one in the bag this month. On average, the only person who worked fewer hours than Assault was Dauntless. In conclusion:

"No," he said, and resumed walking.

He heard Assault make a disagreeable noise behind him, but if the man wanted to make plans then he should have been more careful with his free time. Armsmaster passed out of the cafeteria's wide doorway, and like clockwork, after about six paces:

("Man, what a joyless prick.")

The time-honored tradition of complaining about your boss started up in the group he'd left behind.

("Well, what'd you expect? You should have just gone to Piggot.")

("No kidding. I should have known taking Puppy to the show wouldn't be efficient enough for our fearless leader.")

Armsmaster indulged in half of a sigh— no more. The comments didn't actually bother him, he knew he was more strict than his subordinates would have preferred. He had basically nothing in common with them anyway, so their personal opinions didn't matter to him. He didn't dislike his team, even respected them— though he'd respect them more if they showed more initiative; Miss Militia put in extra hours and took on extra duties when she could, and she was diligent in practicing at the firing range, so it was no surprise to Armsmaster that he got along with her the best out of the local hero team. As long as they did their jobs and were professional when needed, they could say whatever they liked. Although…

Not for the first time, Armsmaster wondered if him overhearing their complaints was on purpose or not. His helmet covered his ears and was able to be sealed, so it _should_ have been obvious that he had a microphone going; otherwise how would he hear them at all? But, Dragon did have a point, just because something should be obvious didn't mean that it was. And, in retrospect, it wasn't like he expected anyone but him to know what all functions were included in his tinkertech. So their complaints were likely just harmless bitching. Nothing he needed to be upset over.

Armsmaster mused on the thought for a little bit longer, then brushed the matter aside as unimportant. He'd give the schedule a more thorough look-over when he finished up with some paperwork later, but he didn't expect Assault's request to bear fruit this time. For now, it was back to the lab, to disassemble the Model 04 halberd; he suspected there was a crack forming in the power core's shielding, and that needed to be looked into and corrected before he did anything else with it.

He got back to his workbench, retrieved the defective weapon and his tools, and was about to start working when his phone buzzed. A moment of dread gripped him as he wondered if Yu had disregarded his warning and gotten picked up by the police again, but no— it was his PRT phone, not his personal one. And a quick glance at the call number brightened Armsmaster's spirits. He plugged the phone's cord into his helmet so he could answer it more easily. "Chevalier, hello."

" _Armsmaster,"_ his friend returned. The number of people Armsmaster would call that could be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. There were a few individuals he wasn't sure exactly how to quantify, somewhere in the muddied spaces between friend, acquaintance, and rival— but Chevalier had a permanent place in the former. " _I was hoping you'd pick up. Got some time?"_

"I'm doing some diagnostics and repairs, but I can talk. What do you need?"

" _Just called to talk, actually. It's been awhile since I've heard from you."_ About a month, give or take a few days. Chevalier tended to call pretty regularly. " _How is everything?"_

"Same as ever, for whatever that's worth. How's Philly?"

Chevalier laughed. " _Same as ever, but if you're interested, a new Chinese place just opened up this month. I've heard good things. We could catch up."_

Armsmaster couldn't keep all of the regret out of his voice. "My apologies, but I'll have to pass."

" _You're not interested? When did you stop loving Chinese food?"_ **Never**. Armsmaster even felt a distant, misplaced pang of guilt for that neglected bento. " _Or do you just not have the time?"_

"The latter, unfortunately. I've got my hands full."

" _You said the same thing last month, you remember. And the month before that."_

The rebuke was gentle, even he could tell that much, but it made him fidget a bit anyway. "Sorry. It's still true this month. There's just not enough hours in the day anymore."

" _Anymore? Does that mean you started sleeping again?"_

"As much as I have been," he said, and cursed the slowness of his response. It was… very hard to lie to Chevalier, for some reason. Even by omission. He just tended to spot the truth of things.

" _Colin…"_

"A polyphasic schedule suits me just fine, been at it for a few years now. I'm well adjusted."

" _Which is strange, because the way I remember it, you started that 3-hours-a-day madness as a last ditch cure for your insomnia."_

"And it worked. I fall asleep when I need to." Michael—he'd already broken out the first names—sighed, like he wanted to argue. Colin cut him off before he could start, even as he continued disassembling his halberd. "It's not perfect, but if I'm going to be awake anyway, I may as well use that time productively. I know you understand."

" _I understand the sentiment, what I disagree with is your interpretation of it."_ He could almost _hear_ Michael shake his head. But, the other hero decided not to press the issue, and changed the subject; he asked about an invention Colin had been starting when he'd called last month, and Colin was happy to speak about it at length. He reciprocated by inquiring after any new developments or experiments in Chevalier's armor properties, and listened in easy silence while he worked.

* * *

His last patrol ran long, and he was late getting back to his house. Yu was still up, but the teen was on his way to bed. He greeted Colin, then tilted his head a bit and smiled. "You look a bit happier than usual. Did something good happen?"

Did he normally look unhappy? Well, no matter. "I heard from an old friend today."

If anything, Yu smiled a bit wider. "Ah— yes, I understand. It is a very good feeling; I am happy for you. Good night, Mr Wallis."

Happy for him, huh? Colin shook his head a bit as he set up his laptop for the night— but he also smiled. "Weird kid."


	12. November (3)

**November (3)**

Though he wasn't sure of the reason for the difference, American schools had one advantage over Japan: two-day weekends. Yu never turned down more free time, so having all of Saturday to himself was a novelty he resolved to never tire of. There were a lot of things he needed to do, after all; he still had to find a good fishing spot, and there was that nightclub he had yet to visit, off the top of his head. It looked rather cloudy outside, though, which somewhat dampened his enthusiasm for exploration. After making himself breakfast and giving the matter some consideration, Yu decided on the day's plans and headed for Lord's Market.

Now that he knew the way to get there, he wanted to experiment with a bit of an idea he'd had. He'd managed to borrow a chair and a little folding TV-tray table from one of the garage-sale vendors, after bargaining with them by means of purchasing a second-hand hooded sweater (a nice blue one, not too worn), and he set up on a bench near the edge of the market with his Tarot cards and a little paper sign that read, "Tarot reading, $5." There weren't a lot of people who took him up on the offer, not today, but perhaps if he kept coming out here more regularly, word would get around?

(Part-Time Job Count: 2)

Later in the afternoon, right when he was seriously considering leaving and finding lunch, a bright peal of laughter drew Yu's attention to a pair of teens walking together not far from his little stand. They were both tall, but the blonde girl had a sort of presence that made her stand out, seem larger than life. Actually, now that he looked at her— Yu was pretty sure she went to Arcadia as well. He'd seen her in the cafeteria, always surrounded by others.

As luck would have it, she noticed him, too— or rather, his sign. She gestured to the young man she was with, pointed, and then all but dragged her partner over to where Yu was. He heard the tail edge of a grumbled complaint, just before he greeted the pair. "Hello. Would you like me to read the cards for you?"

"Oh, come on Dean, it's harmless! So, what do you do, tell me my future? Got advice for my ~love life~?"

"If that is what you want," Yu said, choosing to ignore the girl's sing-song teasing of her partner. "I have been using a basic three-card spread for this. There are many different ways to use it— the most common are a look at your current situation and challenges, or a look at your personal strengths and weaknesses. What in particular do you want to know?"

"Mmm... give me the situation one! Here, five dollars."

Yu nodded, then drew his hand over the tarot deck. He gently caught the first three cards, and spread them in a straight line before him. The girl sat down on the bench, then tugged her partner down beside her. Yu flipped over the first card. "This is you— The Sun, in the upright position. This card is very positive, very energetic, and it implies optimism in the face of hardships."

He kept a straight face as he flipped over the next. "A challenge you will face is this card. Justice, in the reversed position: this signifies a _lack_ of justice, or in other words, unfairness, and a lack of accountability."

"Wh— hey, just what are you trying to say!" Hot-tempered, this one, so Yu felt no surprise when he flipped over the last card in the row. The fact that she protested so strongly implied that she might already be aware of a problem—and that was good, as knowing was half the battle.

"This card is advice for dealing with your issues. Strength, in the upright position. You need to cultivate your _inner_ strengths, such as self-control and patience, if you wish to face Justice with a clear mind."

The blonde sulked, clearly offended, but if anything Yu had managed to endear himself somewhat to her partner, Dean. He gave a small laugh and squeezed her shoulder. "Well, Vicky, you _did_ ask."

* * *

It was raining. The sound was heavy on the roof of Mr Wallis' house, interspersed with the occasional, far-off muttering of thunder. There was only so much studying Yu could do to stave off his nerves, and as the clock ticked closer and closer to midnight, the math problems and history questions took on less and less significance. Eventually, his concentration broke, and Yu settled onto the couch in front of the black television screen, and waited for the Midnight Channel.

The rumors had started as a game, or so he'd been told. 'Stare into a turned-off TV at midnight while it's raining, and you'll see an image of your soulmate.' Harmless superstition, at least at first. But then the Midnight Channel had really started, and it wasn't a game or harmless at all. The black screen didn't show your soulmate, and while the truth of the matter was still confusing, even to Yu, one of the first rationales his friends had assigned to it still had the strongest impression: a ransom note.

In Inaba, on rainy midnights, the screen would flicker to life with the hazy image of someone in the static. The clearer the image became, the more you could see the person struggling, and the less time you had to do anything about it. They'd taken it as a warning: this person is next. This person will die if you do not save them. Even now, with the killers caught and the fog lifted, that was a kick in the gut that could not be shaken. Yu barely reacted when a car parked outside, soon followed by a rattle of keys as Mr Wallis came through the front door. He heard the man make an irritated sound, and then the kitchen light was switched on and Yu glanced up from the screen to watch his guardian fish a dishtowel from a drawer and use it to scrub the rain out of his hair and beard. Mr Wallis then dumped his wet coat over a chair, and was drying off the case for his laptop when he turned and spotted Yu on the couch in the living room.

Mr Wallis did a sort of whole-body twitch, part jump and part reaching for something that wasn't there. "Wh— Yu? What are you doing?"

"Sitting here. Sorry to have startled you, Mr Wallis."

"Right. Just… sitting in the dark? Ah… does the TV not work?" Mr Wallis finished patting down his laptop case and tossed the dishtowel onto a counter.

"It works fine. I am just not watching it."

"Alright then…" Yu watched Mr Wallis almost visually set his apprehension aside, so he could set up his laptop and resume working. He almost never left the light on, the glow of his computer's screen apparently enough to see by, and tonight was no exception. Soon enough, the rapid tap-tap-tap of keys mingled with the sound of rain on the roof, and the sound of the ticking of the clock on the wall wove between them in quieter moments. At one point past 11, Mr Wallis paused in his work and turned to look at Yu. "...you know you can watch the TV, if you want? The sound won't bother me."

"Thank you, but I would rather not." It was hard to make out any expression on Mr Wallis's face, but after a moment, the older man nodded, and turned back to his work. Yu went back to alternately watching the hands of the clock, and staring into the darkened screen. Midnight rolled around— then 12:05, and 12:10. Nothing. Yu breathed a sigh of relief, and wiped cold sweat off his forehead. He hadn't— hadn't _really_ been expecting anything to happen, but…

The tapping of keys ceased, and Yu turned tired eyes back on Mr Wallis, who had gotten up from his chair and approached the couch. The man eyed the black screen for a moment, then Yu. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing," Yu said, then hesitated. It wasn't a complete answer, or a satisfying one, and he could tell his silence had unnerved Mr Wallis. He elaborated, but quietly. "In Inaba… there was a serial murder case happening. It was on rainy nights that victims would be taken."

"Ah…" Mr Wallis said, and didn't press for more. Instead, he sat on the arm of the couch, and looked towards the drawn shades of the living room window. "This neighborhood is mostly occupied by older people. Retirees and such. There's a very low crime rate around here."

Well, that was… one way to try and make him feel better. Not the one Yu would have chosen, but he appreciated the attempt. "That is reassuring to know."

Mr Wallis nodded, and this close Yu could see the slight uptick of his mouth. He supposed the older man was pleased that Yu understood. "Are you going to bed, now?"

"No. I am tired, but I do not think I could sleep."

Mr Wallis sighed, but it wasn't a disappointed sound. "Yeah, I know that feeling."

"Do you have trouble sleeping? What do you do if you are kept awake?"

"Work." Color Yu unsurprised. But then Mr Wallis continued, saying, "Though, when I can, I watch a movie. Doesn't happen very often, anymore." He trailed off, and after a moment of pensive silence, Yu watched Mr Wallis leave the side of the couch to kneel in front of the television. He fumbled at the outdated DVD player for a moment, then found the power button and pressed it. A small red light at the corner of the device lit up. "Huh. I'm kinda surprised this thing still works."

"It _does_ seem like an older model. I could not find a remote for it or the television, either."

"Yyyyeah, those are… gone." Mr Wallis turned away from him as though embarrassed. Then he stood and looked over at his laptop, the screen still illuminating that corner of the room. The older man sighed, and turned back to Yu, suddenly looking very out of his depth. "The program I was working on is compiling, so I can't touch it until it's done. If you still can't sleep, then… there's a rental place that's open late not far from here, if you'd like to watch something."

That caught Yu's attention, and he sat up a bit straighter on the couch. From the preface, that sounded like an offer, not a suggestion. "I would like that."

"Alright. I'll… get my keys." Yu had to smile, a bit. Even Uncle Dojima hadn't been _this_ halting with conversation… though it was a close comparison. "Do you know what you'd want to watch?"

As he followed the older man out of the living room and towards the still-illuminated kitchen, Yu considered it. Truthfully, Yu wasn't picky, so he felt that the more interesting question was to wonder what Mr Wallis would _also_ want to watch. A comedy? No, no. That was definitely not it. Drama— that didn't seem very right either. Action? That was closer to Yu's read on him, but still perhaps not the best choice. Which left… "Science fiction?"

It was much easier to spot the slight smile on his guardian's face this time, and Yu got the definite sense that Mr Wallis approved of his choice. "You too, huh? The rental place is kinda an older one, so they probably won't have anything from Aleph. There's still a lot of good films to choose from, though."

Yu didn't know enough about American cinema to make a judgment on that, but Mr Wallis evidently did. Once he'd driven them to the small video rental store, he had a few words of commentary on nearly any film Yu asked about, tucked away in the corner of the store that belonged to Mr Wallis's genre of choice. Could he really have seen all of them? Yu hadn't seen any movies being kept in Mr Wallis's home at all, so perhaps he only rented them from here. If that was the case, Yu wondered how hard it would be to find a film that Mr Wallis hadn't seen yet.

But, he decided, that was a thought for another day.

Yu picked out a movie, and Mr Wallis paid the rental fee, then drove them back to his house. He did take a moment to check on the progress of his computer, but after that he settled onto the couch next to Yu to watch the film with him. About an hour in, there was a chime from Mr Wallis's laptop, and Yu saw the older man turn a frankly conflicted gaze in the direction of the computer. After a moment of hesitation, though, he settled back and continued watching the movie.

The rain kept pattering against the roof and the windows. The television's screen glowed, but with vibrancy and narrative. Yu liked it a lot better this way.


	13. November (4)

**November (4)**

Armsmaster probably would have had a hard time dragging himself out of bed a few hours after the movie if he had actually bothered to lie down at all. Instead, his watch went off at 4:00 like usual, and Armsmaster blinked to partial awareness to find himself still sitting in front of his laptop. The document he'd been working on ended in a long strain of gibberish from where he'd fallen asleep still typing. He frowned at it; he'd have to go over it later and see if he'd managed any actual coherent progress, or if his attempt to recoup lost time had produced nothing but sleep deprivation and several minutes of extra proofreading. And an uncountable number of muscle cramps. Armsmaster carefully stretched and started packing up his laptop once he could move a bit easier. Damn headache had decided to spread down his neck and into his shoulders, probably because he'd spent the past few hours sitting here. Honestly, he was kind of impressed he'd even remained seated, instead of slumping over the desk, but at least this way he wouldn't have key imprints on his face for the rest of the morning.

Armsmaster grabbed his work bag on the way out the door, ate a couple of meal bars during the drive to the mainland PRT building, and got the day started in stubborn defiance of the iron band digging into his temples. First stop was the employee gym facilities; careful logging showed a nearly 8% drop in performance from yesterday. He chalked that up to the disruption of sleep, but just because it was understandable didn't make it acceptable. A shower naturally followed, and the hot water helped his sore neck at least.

He had a copy of his itinerary loaded on his work phone, and Armsmaster consulted it as soon as he was dressed. 5:30, he had a half hour to check his email and tend to any inquiries that had arrived overnight. That, and find some caffeine, for the love of God.

He did have another option, Armsmaster reflected, as he got to his office and sat down. He'd developed both stimulants and sedatives, the former for Endbringer engagements and the latter for hostile parahumans. A dose of the stimulant would certainly erase his current fatigue, and, while not frequent, it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him to do so. And normally, on a sleepless night, he wouldn't have hesitated— but right now his head was killing him, and since it showed no sign of letting up anytime soon, Armsmaster was seriously considering taking something for the pain, instead. And it would have to be instead, because the fuzziness he got from analgesics did _not_ mesh well with the high-alert nerves that came with his stimulants.

Enough caffeine might be able to neatly sidestep the issue, however, so of course now would be the time to realize he had run out of coffee grounds. Of course it would.

5:39 AM and already he was off schedule, resisting the urge to watch the red line of failure on his phone's itinerary tracker as he trudged into the PRT cafeteria. Most of the team was still absent, and knowing them it wasn't because they'd taken transport to the Rig already, but Militia, Dauntless, and Battery were clustered at a table. Militia was understandable, she didn't even need to sleep so it was no problem for her to arrive early. Dauntless worked out in the employee gym three times a week, starting at 6:30 AM— one of the reasons Armsmaster got to his own exercise regime first. Battery he had no idea, but she probably had an early patrol and he'd simply forgotten. Armsmaster's pace slowed down as he watched them, sitting together and leaning in as Dauntless pointed something out on a tablet. Battery laughed, the sound drawing a few eyes from the cafeteria staff.

...it was so unfair.

The three heroes noticed him, standing frozen a few meters away. Dauntless waved. "G'mornin' sir! Hey, come take a look at this, Velocity sent me a bunch of funny pictures of dogs, and—" The rest of Dauntless' sentence was lost in an ice-pick spike between Armsmaster's temples. He resumed walking almost on autopilot, altered course a little so he ended up standing next to the end of the table where his co-workers were sitting together. Dauntless grinned and tilted the tablet a little so that he could see better. Armsmaster stared down at it with dull eyes.

It was so unfair.

Armsmaster was 36, and felt like 60. Militia was only a year or two younger, and she was fine. Battery was even younger than that, and already married. Dauntless was just now reaching his physical prime. The younger hero swiped on the tablet, and the image changed to a different inane animal.

Miss Militia's power gave her any weapon she needed, no preamble, and it kept her alert and rested no matter how many hours she'd been awake. Battery's power put an emphasis on sudden, strong movements, and let her execute them while ignoring any detrimental effect to her person. She had no problems keeping a physique. And Dauntless?

Battery laughed at whatever picture Dauntless was showing now, and Miss Militia snickered more quietly. Armsmaster clenched his jaw a little more tightly, feeling nausea start to churn in his gut, keeping time with his pulse that pounded at his brain.

Dauntless had a power that doled itself out, steadily and reliably, no strings attached. No fighting for inches. No rising tide of overhead repair work, just to keep from sliding backwards. No constantly measuring investment versus reward. No sleepless nights, no minute-by-minute scheduling, no dying brother, no constant unrelenting need to improve.

It was _so fucking unfair_.

The three of them were chattering, looking over Dauntless' pictures. Armsmaster heard his name called, and Miss Militia looked up at him. The start of crow's feet near her eyes crinkled up, like she was smiling—

 _(pretending to be happy to see him)_

—but when he didn't respond, what he could see of her expression faded a bit. Instead, her eyebrows drew together. "Armsmaster?"

There was something squeezing his chest, something putting a hand on his throat and clamping down. Some horrid, messed-up mix of thoughts he refused to look too closely at. Instead, he turned a sudden glare on the three sitting at the table.

" _(If you've got time to be goofing off, you're not using your mornings productively,)_ " Armsmaster snapped at them. " _(If you're going to be here, in costume, then at least_ _ **act**_ _like professionals.)_ "

"H-hey, sir, that's—"

" _(I don't want to hear your excuses! Find something more effective to do with your time.)_ " Armsmaster turned and stalked out of the cafeteria, cutting off any complaints. Forget the coffee, he didn't need the caffeine, he'd tough it out or use the stimulant. He was unacceptably far behind in his work and none of these distractions were helping. He had new projects to start, finished projects to tweak, older projects to check over.

A more coherent thought struck him, this one not so angry or distant, and Armsmaster latched onto it before it could be drowned in fatigue or lost to his migraine:

Tinkertech breaks down if you don't maintain it.

* * *

"Hnf. S'good." It was only a couple of half-formed words, mumbled around a mouth full of fried chicken, but Bitch's pleased expression spoke volumes. Yu had decided to try and make a lunch for his reclusive employer, and it seemed his gamble had paid off; though, it wasn't exactly a hard guess that Bitch would prefer meat. They sat roughly together on the pile of tires at Bitch's dog shelter, eating their early lunch and fending off pleading stares and the occasional plaintive whine from those dogs that hadn't been taught not to beg yet.

Which made Yu wonder: were there homemade dog treats that Bitch would approve of? He thought she mostly used praise as a reward while training her collection of rescues, but maybe for difficult cases, or her personal henchdogs? He filed away the thought for future consideration.

"Told a couple people about you. Said you were looking for work," Bitch said, interrupting his thoughts. "One guy wants you to go to the store for him. Too lazy to do it himself."

How charming. "I see. If there is a set time he wants to meet me, or a list, that would be very easy."

(Part-time Job Count: 3)

"I'll tell him." She finished off the last piece of chicken she was eating, then crumpled the wrapper and stuffed it into the lunch bag he'd brought. "Done for today, right? Thanks for the food."

"You are welcome. See you again in a few days, Bitch." Yu hopped off the tire stack, then paused. "Oh, I should give you my phone number. That way, you can call me if you want help. Is that alright?"

Bitch considered for a moment, then nodded. "Sure. Write it on something." A clean section of the discarded wrapper worked just fine for that purpose. Yu dug out a pen, carefully wrote down his number, and handed it over. "Thanks. See you later," she said, and pocketed the slip. She didn't reciprocate, but that was fine— Yu suspected he could get a show of trust eventually. All things in due time.

Yu left the dog shelter and wandered back to the nearest bus stop, to head back to Mr Wallis' house. He was getting faster at the cleaning duties Bitch assigned to him, so between that and the lingering weekend, he had more than enough time to get cleaned up and still go out. Perhaps back to Lord's Market, to tell fortunes for a bit? Or—he revised his plans as Mr. Wallis' house came into view—he could investigate the large cardboard box propped against the front step. He hadn't ordered anything from a shopping network lately, and Mr Wallis kind of seemed more likely to have anything delivered to his work, rather than his house if possible. So, what was this, then?

Yu jogged the last few steps of the sidewalk and knelt to investigate the package. It was rather large, a good hundred centimeters long or more, and a little over 30 centimeters wide. It was covered in customs stickers, and it was addressed to him. If this was what he thought it was… Yu felt some of the blood drain from his face, even as his heart quickened in excitement. If this was what he thought it was, he was definitely in possession of smuggled goods now, because he couldn't imagine how else Yosuke had gotten this out of the country. Yu quickly dragged the package inside and to his room, and for lack of a knife used his house keys to slice the sealing tape.

On top of the treasure horde was a note.

- _Hey partner!_

 _Sorry this took so long, I wanted to ask around and get some stuff together first. And it was NOT cheap! I actually had to get some of Rise's people to come pick this up just to mail it. Pretty sure she owns me now (not that that's bad, hehe). Everyone misses you. Hope it's what you need, try not to do anything I wouldn't do!_

 _Oh, and I dunno what you said or did, but apparently Kanji went kinda crazy and Naoto has been yelling at him a lot, and the rest of the delay is his fault. Said he wanted to make you something and wouldn't let anyone else see it, except for Old Man Daidara. So I guess enjoy it, but maybe try not to give Naoto a heart attack?_

Below that, even if it wasn't what Yosuke was referring to, was indeed exactly what Yu needed: a pile of envelopes, each with a different name. Yu couldn't believe it. He sat back on his heels for a moment, sorting through the pile, feeling hope and gratitude fill him. Yosuke had gone around Inaba, and collected letters from all his friends— there was quite the pile here. At least fifteen, maybe a few more. He spotted Kou and Daisuke's names, and Ai, and Yumi, and even Ms Minami, and Shu, and Ms Uehara. How had he even found them all? Yosuke had really put effort into this, he realized. It would have taken a dedicated search, and all just to send him letters. One of them was just a white sheet of paper with a bunch of black ink pawprints on it, and Yu said a quiet thank-you to the Fox for the gesture. And Nanako had drawn a picture for him, which someone (he suspected Yukiko) had thoughtfully found a frame for: a crayon drawing of him, and Nanako, and Uncle Dojima, all standing next to their house. This was going on his wall.

And the item beneath all of _that_ was going back into its stand. Yu carefully lifted the sword out, already feeling reassured by its weight. The Tsubaki-Otoshi was an _ōdachi,_ a sword so large it was frankly illegal in modern-day Japan. Then again, so were its compatriots the bastard sword and claymore, and Yu had used those as well, so the legality didn't actually bother him. He stood and drew the blade a few inches from its scabbard; it had been well-cleaned, and recently. Probably by Daidara, the blacksmith. Why that old man was so completely okay with selling weapons and armor to teenagers was a mystery that may never be solved, but Yu was grateful for it. He pushed the sword back into its sheath, then walked to his dresser and set the blade carefully into the sword stand.

Underneath the sword was a long, folded bundle of something wrapped in black cloth, which Yu turned his attention to next. He picked up the bundle, only to find it wasn't _wrapped_ in anything, it _was_ cloth. Thick, and heavy, and as he drew it from the box it clinked together from armor plates and a number of extraneous buckles. A coat, an absolutely huge one, with a high collar and—after it fell from the coat with a clang—a metal helm of folded steel plates. The details weren't exact, he must have done it from memory, but the resemblance and sheer audacity took Yu's breath away.

"Kanji Tatsumi, you _absolute madman_ ," he breathed. "I love it."


	14. November (5)

**November (5)**

Nobody does anything without a reason. If there was a cornerstone to Yu's approach to life, that was it. There was _always_ a reason, even if he didn't understand what it was what drove someone, there was _something_.

He hadn't always thought that. But then, he hadn't always had people to hold precious to him. He'd drifted, solitary and remote, for most of his life before moving to Inaba. But it was there, behind the TV, that he finally got a glimpse of the truth of the world. For all that they were twisted reflections, Shadows had struck Yu as _real_ in a way he'd never known. They were angry, and bitter, and antagonistic. They bent the truth of their words as far as they could without ever breaking it. They were so terribly, painfully vulnerable, and afraid. It was the existence of Shadows that made Yu realize that people were not only what they said they were. And in the heart of every Shadow was the potential for something grand, for someone wonderful and strong.

Shadows were why _everyone_ was worth getting to know. Shadows were why everyone had a reason for what they did, no matter what it was, no matter how buried they kept it. Everyone was driven by something.

So what was driving Colin Wallis?

He'd come home the other night in full Cactus Mode, brushing off Yu's greeting and inquiries in as few syllables as possible. Yu had tried bringing up the topic of another movie, but received only a sullen "Not tonight," in response. Which was odd— Mr Wallis had seemed to genuinely enjoy the topic previously. And ever since Yu had gotten arrested, he'd been much more willing to at least engage in limited conversation, but that tendency had seemingly vanished as well. Yu had never known anyone to just… retreat like that. It was kind of baffling. It was kind of worrisome.

How worrisome remained to be seen. In the meantime, lunch. Yu eyed the different groups of students in the Arcadia cafeteria, and decided to approach one he'd often seen, but never adhered himself to. He waited for a break in the flow of students around him, then made for the table dominated by a young blonde and her coterie, managing to slip his lunch bag in between a couple of hangers-on and thus securing himself a seat at court.

The blonde noticed him immediately, and had to quickly swallow a mouthful of pizza before pointing at him. "Hey, aren't you that guy from the market?"

"I am. I thought I recognized you from school, but we have never been introduced. My name is Yu Narukami."

"Victoria Dallon," she returned, though with a bit of a scowl. "And I'm tempted to ask for a refund, you know."

"All sales are final."

"What's this about?" A girl next to Victoria spoke up, looking between them. She was rather plain, with brown hair straying on the frizzy side. Strange; had he overlooked her? Victoria seemed to have more than enough presence for the two of them. Maybe she was just a bit overshadowed. "Vicky, what'd you do now?"

"Nothing! This is that fortune guy, is all." Victoria frowned a bit harder, then sighed, and just like that she was smiling again. "This is my sister, Amy."

"Hello to you as well, Amy," Yu said.

"Oh, so you're the fortune teller?" There was a somewhat satisfied look on Amy's face, and Yu wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it. "Good one. Why'd you stop over here, then? Trying to get Vicky to buy another round?"

"If she wants, I suppose? I do have my cards with me. But, I sat here because I am trying to sit at each group of tables at least once. I just moved to this city, so I do not know many students here."

"Is that right?" How skeptical. Victoria must have been used to her sister's moods, because she grinned and tousled the brunette's hair. "Gak, hey!"

"Hey, hey, read Ames' fortune! Here, I got five bucks, do it do it do it!"

"Vickyyyyy…!"

Yu eyed the five dollar bill Victoria tossed onto the lunch table, and reached for his cards. He pulled out the deck, but refused to draw from it just yet. "Amy, do you want me to read the cards for you?"

"Ugh. I guess if Vicky's buying, I don't have a choice."

"There is always a choice. Even if you feel obligated, your will is your own." Yu stared at her, and watched her brown eyes widen a bit. The tarot deck tingled under his fingertips, but he waited as she hesitated, then bit her lip, then finally nodded. Yu slid the top three cards off of the deck and flipped the first over. "This is your card. The Hanged Man, in the reversed position."

The table around them grew quieter as Yu spoke. Both Amy and Victoria leaned in a bit, to eye the image of the man in the noose on the card. "Reversed, this card indicates hesitation and indecision, an anxiety. It also suggests an unwilling sort of martyrdom."

"This card is a struggle you face," he continued, and flipped over the next card. "The Star, in the reversed position. This card means despair, discouragement, and a lack of faith in yourself."

"T-that's not-"

"And this card," Yu spoke over her, "is advice for overcoming that despair: Judgement, in the upright position. This card suggests rebirth and absolution, forgiveness stemming from affirmation. If you can make a decision on who and what you want to be, and trust yourself to commit to it, then you will no longer feel despair and unwanted sacrifice."

There was silence for a long moment, finally broken with a snarl of chair on linoleum as Amy got up and left the table. Victoria called after her, then stopped just long enough to shoot Yu a glare somewhere between bewilderment and anger before rushing after her sister. Yu packed up his cards, pocketed the $5 left on the table, and started eating his lunch. Possible psychological landmines aside, no wonder Igor smiled all the time: this was kind of fun.

* * *

After class, Yu opted to head for the library instead of the Market, where he did his homework until a computer station was freed up. He sent another email to Naoto, thanking her and everyone profusely for the care package and extending his sympathies to Yosuke on his new life of servitude to the Idol Mafia. He had time left on his computer rental, so he decided to stay and browse the internet for a bit, and try to relax. When his time was up, he packed his things away, and headed out into the winter-dark evening of Brockton Bay.

As he headed back to Mr. Wallis' house, Yu started to wonder, just a little uneasily, if this city was cursed. Or maybe it was just him? He'd certainly never run into trouble like this in Inaba— ah, but maybe that just didn't count. Inaba was quieter and smaller than Brockton Bay, and the whole serial murders thing likely took up most of the town's bad luck, much less his own. But, thinking back, he hadn't found much trouble in all the other places he'd lived, either, so this was either something new to him, or it was a problem with the city itself.

"Just gonna stand there, huh? Your funeral, kid."

Oh. Or he could stop taking short-cuts on the way home. That would also help. Yu peered out from under the shadow of his hooded sweater at the group of men he'd stumbled upon. All of them were wearing masks, at least in part, though for most of them it was a simple bandanna wrapped around the lower half of their faces, covering the nose and mouth. The man who had his attention, however, was wearing a more formal sort of disguise, with a face mask made to resemble a siberian tiger. If Yu was remembering the dossier right, then that would make this Stormtiger. And that would make Yu accidentally interrupting their business—whatever it was—a bad idea.

For them.

Yu held the Arcana in his mind's eye, even as Stormtiger gestured at his fellows and stepped forward. From the name and Naoto's dossier, Yu was expecting Stormtiger to turn the power of Wind against him, so he needed to quickly decide on his own strategy. Lovers, perhaps? Ishtar absorbed the power of Wind, but she didn't have much in the way of offensive options, especially as Yu didn't have his sword with him. Or Magician— he _did_ want to find out if Mada could silence a parahuman as reliably as it could a shadow. Perhaps the Emperor? Odin was as reliable against Stormtiger as Ishtar, but he had a bit more force to him. Really, when it came down to it, Izanagi-no-Okami was probably still the most well-rounded of his options, but honestly, Yu sometimes felt bad about not rotating between Persona as often as he could, anymore. Odin it was, then.

"There is no need to fight," Yu warned them, backing up a few steps even as he focused on the image of The Emperor in his mind. He stopped backing up as Izanagi-no-Okami receded, and Odin filled his soul with anger and purpose instead. He'd hoped he could go more than a couple of weeks before defying Mr. Wallis' advice, but apparently it was not to be. Ah, well. Even if he wasn't so unfamiliar with trying to navigate Brockton Bay's alleyways, it wasn't in his nature to want to run from a fight. "I would prefer that no one be injured, but I cannot promise that."

"Too late," Stormtiger spat, and the parahuman swiped his fists at Yu, still a meter away. A visible wave of pressurized air lanced forward, only to puff harmlessly against Yu's sweater. The cape and his group halted their advance for a bare moment in surprise. Still enough time for Yu to extend his reach to Odin, and grasp the power there.

"What the fu—"

"Maziodyne."

The darkened alleyway was abruptly lit as bright as day by the sudden electrical storm that burst into existence between the two brick walls closing Yu in with the gang members. Stormtiger was thrown back by a green-yellow blitz of ball lightning, which arced out and ground itself through his compatriots. The poor thugs yelled out under the muscle spasms, then scrambled away from Yu as the shocks subsided, each of them franticly trying to beat out flames on their clothes and escape the alley faster than their fellows. He saw Stormtiger stand, chest scorched and body shaking, and the cape sent him one last look and a curse before deciding to retreat as well.

Yu exhaled a breath he hadn't yet realized he'd been holding. Thank goodness; they all survived. He was so used to fighting shadows, he'd— he'd not considered that people were probably more fragile until he'd already acted. He'd tried to pull back as much of that energy as he could, and honestly he had no idea if it had worked. He needed to _practice_ , he needed a safe way of testing how this power fared in the real world. Naoto managed, so it wasn't impossible, but—

"Holy _fuck_ , dude! Watch where you're aiming that thing!"

A girl's voice from up above drew Yu's attention, and he scanned the darkened alley as best he could. He just barely noticed a shape, blurred and indistinct, glide down from atop a broken streetlight to land on the pavement in front of him. It became much more distinct as soon as it did: a slight figure in a cloak and hood, with a stern-looking mask and a crossbow. Another parahuman, he supposed. "I mean, good takedown and all, show those assholes what for. But watch it, will you?"

...how long had the hooded girl been up there? Well, he hadn't caught her in the blast, at least. "I am sorry. It is… difficult to aim."

Footsteps and panting breaths forestalled whatever else the hooded girl was going to say, as a youth in a face-covering white bodysuit ran past the entrance to the alleyway. A second later they backed up, spotted Yu and the girl inside, and changed course to jog to a stop next to the hooded cape. "Stalker, what are you doiiiiii— heeeey, there… person."

What a nervous-sounding young man. His costume was covered in images of clocks; perhaps he fashioned himself after a certain White Rabbit? Yu smiled at the thought, and waved to the new cape. "Hello."

"Uh… hi. What are Y— you doing here, um, citizen?"

"I was going home, but I ran into Stormtiger." The nervous young man kind of sounded familiar, now that he thought about it. "Who are you?"

"Oh— we're with the Wards! I'm Clockblocker, and the surly one here is Shadow Stalker." Clockblocker struck a pose, while his teammate scoffed. The Wards? Wasn't that the Sentai Youth sort of thing they had in America? He would have to look it up later.

"Oh, you are heroes, then? That is good." Yu smiled at them, then hefted his bag a bit higher on his shoulder. "I am not being arrested for fighting, am I? I need to go home soon, or my cactus will worry."

"Oh—yeah man, it's cool. Uh, stay safe citizen, and um… oh, I got a card or something you can have, hold on." Clockblocker patted at his costume a bit, fishing for a business card, while his partner tilted her head and muttered, ("Cactus?") Ah ha.

Yu smiled a bit wider as he accepted the card, and put it carefully away into his jacket. "Thank you. Good night to both of you."

* * *

Yu got home in plenty of time to beat Mr Wallis, which wasn't exactly a difficult task. He made dinner and finished his homework, and greeted his guardian as usual when Mr Wallis finally came home. He was slightly less thorny than last night, but he still didn't seem to be in a pleasant mood. Yu decided to sit at the table for a bit, and draw some cards. Keeping his eyes on Mr Wallis's back, the man typing in fits and bursts at his laptop, Yu drew the top three cards and spread them in a line.

The first card, predictably, was The Emperor. Authority and control of one's surroundings, patriarchal governance. The second was Temperance, in the reversed position. An imbalance, then, and a lack of long-term vision. Yu considered the card, idly tapping his finger against it. A failure to do things in moderation… that didn't seem unexpected. But Mr Wallis seemed like a consummate planner, so the 'lack of vision' was a bit confusing. Unless… blindness? An inability to see a solution. That sounded about right. It would certainly explain the thorns. If someone feels trapped, they grow defensive. But how to bring it up in conversation?

The beeping of a phone drew Yu's attention away from the cards. Over at his computer, Mr Wallis drew the device from his belt— then surged to his feet, knocking his chair over in the motion. He snapped the laptop shut and shoved it into its case with far less care than Yu had ever seen, then took three quick strides into the kitchen and grabbed his coat. Mr Wallis did a double-take, as though just realizing Yu was still there. The third card, still face-down, tingled under Yu's fingertip. "Mr Wallis, what is wrong?"

"Yu, listen to me— I want you to _stay here_ , stay safe, and don't get into _any_ trouble, got it?"

"Mr Wallis, what—" The words died in his throat as a sound started, far off, but insistent. A siren. "What is that?"

"Leviathan's been spotted, heading towards India, we think. That siren is for the Truce, you need to—"

Pieces fell into place like shattering glass. "You—you are fighting?"

"Yes, and _you_ are _not_. Stay here, Yu. I'll be back in a few days."

"But—!" The door slammed shut behind Mr Wallis, and his car started up a moment later, with a peal of tires on asphalt. Yu slumped into the kitchen chair, legs suddenly boneless. Mr Wallis didn't work for the PRT, he worked for the _Protectorate_. Mr Wallis was a parahuman. A hero. What else was there for Yu to say, except to whisper to the empty kitchen, "Please be safe."

The cards were still on the table. Yu stared at them for a long moment, then turned over the last card. The upright image of the broken Tower was not encouraging.


	15. November (6)

**November (6)**

The atmosphere at Arcadia was strange that day. The American flag outside had been lowered to half-mast, but for a lot of the student body, it was business as usual. Yu even heard excited (if hushed) conversations, speculating if the local Wards were participating in the battle, half a world away. Other students kept an air of solemnity, out of respect or maybe empathy— with a few degrees of separation, there were surely many students who knew someone from the Indian region, or had a parahuman in their lives.

Yu took a cafeteria lunch for once, having not felt up to preparing his own. The Dallon sisters and their table was mostly empty, and he might not have been welcome even if it hadn't been, so Yu plopped his tray down at the Cape Geek table. The teens there had the most obvious split in attitude yet, with one end of the table having a debate over who would win versus what, or which hero or villain of choice had the best anti-Leviathan techniques. The other end of the table held dead silence. Yu sat there, next to Chris and Dennis, and picked at his food.

"Hey," Chris said on a yawn. "We've been listening to the news, but no more announcements yet."

"Is that common? I know that Leviathan attacks can take quite a while…" Yu trailed off. Mr Wallis got the call last night around 11, so if you accounted for any sort of early warning, it had been a little over twelve hours since then. He still hadn't heard from his guardian. "When did the fighting stop?"

"Around 4 this morning," Dennis offered, while Chris yawned again. "They're saying it mostly stayed at Kolkata, not anything like the South Seas attack. Always a bitch waiting for the death tolls, though."

Yu couldn't quite suppress the wince at the reminder. A few years ago, the Second had changed up its tactics by refusing to _stay still_ , even by its own standards. The Leviathan had surfaced in the Philippines, then headed northward as soon as opposition had arrived. It had turned the encounter into a running battle, with parahumans scrambling to keep up as the Endbringer dragged tsunamis through the South and East China seas, before finally making landfall on the island of Kyushu. It had been driven away relatively quickly afterwards, but the total damage to the East Asian coast and islands had been catastrophic. Combine that with the Second's astonishing attack on Madrid, and, well— Leviathan was just full of unpleasant surprises.

"It's early out today, so there's just one period left, if you didn't know. Always is the day of. You got any plans, Yu?"

"No… not really. I may go see if my job at the dog shelter needs me. I do not feel as though I can focus on much, today." What was a good way to burn off nervous energy? Exercise came to mind, but he didn't want to go explore the TV world where he wouldn't be able to receive any phone calls, and physical training just wasn't the same without Chie yelling her various karate sounds and practicing jump-kicks. But something is better than nothing. "Perhaps I should find a gym. Do you have any to recommend?"

"Like… actual gyms? I guess, yeah. I don't really go there, but a friend of mine frequents this place over on 38th and Regiment Street." Chris looked up at him, simultaneously fending off a shoulder-smack from Dennis. "I could ask if he's going there today, I've got a class with him next."

"Would you? I would appreciate it, thank you," Yu said. "Though… perhaps tomorrow?"

"Yeah man, I got it."

* * *

Bitch was indeed at her shelter, and if she was surprised to see Yu, she made no indication of it. She seemed pretty unaffected by the attack in general, but after all, her concerns were here with her dogs. Yu took up a broom and cleaned for a bit, but it wasn't long before anxiety made him opt instead to sit on the tire pile and just wait. Bitch watched him for a few minutes, saying nothing, but she eventually approached him. And not to scold him for slacking off, to Yu's surprise. Instead, she handed him a worn tennis ball, and jerked her thumb at a nearby pack of dogs. As best as he could figure, the silent direction was for him to throw it; he did, and the furry mob chased after the ball, all competing to bring it back to him in a glorious pile of wagging tails. It helped.

Bitch left him to his thoughts and the tennis ball, which Yu threw for the dogs again, and again. The actual composition of the pack changed as dogs got hungry or tired, and wandered off, only to be replaced by newcomers. By mid-afternoon, with the winter sun setting and the cold seeping in, Yu's phone finally rang. He'd never pressed the Accept Call button faster in his life. "Hello?"

" _Hey, Yu,"_ Mr Wallis' voice answered, fatigue in every syllable. " _Sorry, I would_ _—_ _should have called earlier, but I got caught up in helping with the aftermath."_

"Uncle, you're alive! Thank goodness…" The tennis ball dropped from suddenly numb fingers. Yu wished for a moment that Mr Wallis spoke Japanese— trying to express his relief in English felt clumsy and inadequate. "I was so worried."

" _Y_ _—_ _yeah. I'm fine,"_ Mr Wallis fumbled the words, after a strange pause. " _Is everything okay there?"_

"Yes. The city has been very quiet, I think."

" _I meant more like… do you have everything you need? Will you be okay for a few days by yourself?_ "

"Oh, yes. Does that mean you are staying to help with recovery?"

" _Yeah, that's the plan. There's still a lot I can do here yet. I should be back in a day or two. Initial truce for the Bay should end sometime tonight, so keep your head down, okay?"_

"Of course. Please, stay safe as well."

Yu slipped his phone into his jacket, next to his tarot deck. The Tower flitted across his mind's eye, and he brushed it aside. The omen lingered, but for now, Mr Wallis was safe, and that was what mattered. He sat there on the tires and let tension slowly bleed away, keeping his eyes closed until the crunch of boots on gravel caught his attention. Bitch grunted a wordless greeting at him, and climbed up the pile to her usual perch. "Everything good?"

"Yes! Yes, it is good. I suppose I should leave soon, however, before it gets dark." Yu cast a look up at the evening sky, painted in oranges and reds peeking behind a cover of clouds. "My uncle warned me to be wary of the truce, and I do not want to get into another fight."

Bitch gave him an odd look. "Why would the truce matter to you? You a cape?"

"I do not have a cape— oh, you are asking if I have powers?" She nodded, brows drawn together. "Then, yes."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Was I supposed to?" She frowned a bit harder. "If so, then I am sorry."

"If you're a cape, what're you doing here?" What an odd question. Yu wasn't quite sure why Bitch was upset with him. Did it matter if he had powers?

"I am here because I wanted to help with your dogs. And also, because you are paying me, and I like being paid."

"...you're kinda weird." Bitch lost some of her angry expression, going back to something more puzzled. "What's your name? What do you do?"

"You… mean a parahuman name, yes? I do not have one yet." He shrugged, and that seemed to mollify Bitch even further. "As for my powers, um… my uncle said I am a Brute, to use the local term. I am pretty tough, and strong."

"Huh," she grunted, and fell to silence for a bit. He didn't feel like the conversation was over, though, and he was proved right when Bitch turned to look at him again, eyes critical. "Hey. You said you wanted to help. Did you mean with the dog fighting rings?"

Yu nodded. "Of course. It sounds like a horrible practice. I would help you rescue them, if you want me to."

Bitch eyed him again, looking him up and down once more, before giving a single, sharp nod. "'Kay. Be here tomorrow night. Be in costume, or at least a mask."

...he wondered if he would get overtime pay.

* * *

Armsmaster stared at the phone in his hand, half of him trying to decide why he felt so confused, and the other half trying to rationalize that confusion by virtue of fatigue scrambling his brain. Fatigue at least made sense. It didn't expect anything of you, didn't ask you to reciprocate, didn't catch you on the back foot not knowing what to say.

Armsmaster sighed, and slipped the phone back into its case. Chevalier was right, he needed a chance to rest. Even putting aside the muddled, circling nature of his thoughts right now, there comes a point where it's simply irresponsible to continue using a welding torch. Reaching that point was what prompted Armsmaster to disengage himself from gutting the third water treatment facility since the fight had ended, and instead let the other hero know he was free to meet up. He'd probably be back at it in a few hours, even if he honestly wasn't sure how much difference it would make; the water distribution infrastructure was predictably ruined, but once he finished refitting and streamlining the available purification machinery, it would at least take some of the pressure off the outside relief sources.

It took an effort of will to shove his attention back away from tinkering, and just as much to walk back into the bar. Chevalier and—sigh—Myrddin were waiting for him in one of the booths. There was an empty booth on both sides of their claimed space, just like there was for the next small cluster of capes, and the next. There were probably five or six different groups spaced carefully throughout the room, tables of two or three or four heroes or villains who hadn't left the city yet. No matter where in the world an Endbringer showed up, word of still-serving bars and taverns that escaped destruction tended to spread among the defenders pretty fast.

"Hey, hurry up," Myrddin waved him over. "We need your translation software."

"Shouldn't you have gotten your own by now? Or at least found a dictionary," Armsmaster groused, and sat down next to Chevalier. He wasn't a drinker, and in fact he was pretty sure neither of them were, but post-certain-death traditions seemed to override those objections.

"I suppose… Blue Bomber, maybe." Chevalier shrugged. Armsmaster glanced over at him, confused. "Is it weird that I kind of want to see if my power can interact with his different matter states?"

"Yes," Myrddin said. He caught Armsmaster's look and elaborated, "Capes you'd want to fight, but not to arrest them or anything. How about you?"

"You pulled me away from tinkering, and you want to play a juvenile game like that?" Armsmaster scoffed, and started opening up armor plates on his wrist to get at the mechanisms inside. May as well do some simple diagnostics while he was here. "...Roadkill."

He refused to look up at Myrddin grinning, but Chevalier turned his way to ask, "That guy in Arizona? Why?"

"Because I built a motorcycle that can do 0 to 100 in under four seconds, and there's not a single enemy speedster in town." The closest he got to high-speed competition these days was _Uber and Leet_. It was a travesty.

"I thought Brockton had a car Tinker or something?"

"Squealer? She doesn't make fast cars, she just turns junker deathtraps into larger junker deathtraps." Armsmaster proceeded to tune out of the conversation, not entirely on purpose. Aside from getting a drink that he barely touched, he focused on the bits of armor he could disassemble and work on. He had to do it on autopilot, his attention somehow managing to escape the circuits in front of him in favor of a different tangle of wires. Eventually, he stopped tinkering altogether, and just fidgeted with the tools in his hands.

Chevalier rapped two knuckles against Armsmaster's helmet, grabbing his attention by force. "Hey— you're stewing on something. What is it?"

"Nothing," he answered on reflex, then paused. Chevalier kept looking at him, not remotely satisfied by evasion. "Just… thinking. I stepped away to make a call a bit ago, you remember."

"Yes? Figured you were checking with your home team." Myrddin raised an eyebrow at him, just visible inside his hood.

"Not… exactly, no." Armsmaster took a breath. "I was calling my nephew. Letting him know I'm okay."

Myrddin's eyebrows nearly crawled off of his face. He couldn't see Chevalier's, but he assumed they moved in a similar fashion. " _You_ have a nephew? That you actually called? As in— what, is he _living_ with you?" Armsmaster nodded, not hiding the slight frown at the disbelief being shown. "When did that happen?"

"Since September. And before you ask, _yes_ , I did the research and confirmed he actually exists and isn't a Stranger. And none of my team have tackled me to the ground, so I have to assume they're not worried." He wished he could take off his helmet. He couldn't rub at his eyes or temples with it on. "It's just been… weird, I guess."

"I'll bet it's an adjustment, at least. You've rather made a point of avoiding family ties." It was good of Chevalier to at least try and keep the disappointment out of his voice; this was a topic they'd disagreed on many times. "So, what's he like?"

"Well, he's a teenager— 16, I think? Maybe even 17 by now, I don't actually know." That was right, he didn't know Yu's birthday. Didn't know hardly anything about him. They weren't even related by blood, and only barely by pretense of 'in law.' So why did he feel oddly disappointed? "He's… very polite, kind of quiet, studies a lot. This is his first time in America, he was born in Japan. Um… oh, he likes sci-fi, at least a little."

"Oh really? I should lend you my box set—"

"Do not."

"—so you can show him _the_ classic—"

"Myrddin, we have been over this. Star Wars is not science fiction. It's just wizards in space."

"Reality disagrees with you, Armsmaster!"

"I'm a Tinker. Reality can shove it."

Chevalier started to laugh, interrupting the argument before it could tread any more old ground. "Well, it sounds like you've got a few things in common, though he _is_ a teenager. Is he being a handful?"

Yu, being difficult? His nephew had been significantly easier to adjust to than he'd thought possible. Armsmaster's difficulties were mostly just his own habits being inflexible. "No, not at all. He's— he's a good kid."

"Well, look at that," Myrddin joked, making Armsmaster's absent-minded smile turn back into a frown, "the Tin Man does have a heart. What will we ask Eidolon for _now_?"

* * *

Chevalier caught him after Myrddin had left, and he coaxed Armsmaster into coming with him to the outskirts of the nearest hero encampment, where there was more privacy and quiet. He put an armored hand on Armsmaster's shoulder and turned the Tinker to face him, and spoke quietly. "What's actually wrong?"

It was touching that Chevalier knew how to read him well enough to know when he was troubled. It was also inconvenient, because Chevalier tended to insist on addressing it. "...my nephew— he's the son of my sister-in-law's sister. He was supposed to go to her and my brother."

"Why didn't he?"

"I got— a call," Armsmaster hedged, trying not to fidget and wishing for an escape from this conversation. There wasn't one. "Allen's in the hospital. Cancer."

He heard Chevalier hiss a breath through his teeth. "I'm sorry, Colin. Do you know how he's doing?"

He shook his head. "No. I haven't called, and—and I'm not sure if I should, or—or what. I don't know when he got it, he didn't want to tell me. I don't— really think they want me butting in, or anything."

"Easy, Colin. Calm down." He swore and looked away, but Chevalier was patient and waited for him to take a few breaths. "I'm certain Allen wouldn't mind if you called. I'm sure he'd like to hear from you."

"Then…" Why?

"I… suspect that maybe, he just didn't want to upset you," Chevalier said carefully, answering the unasked question. "I know Brian's death was hard on you."

"You don't have to bring that up."

"I know. I'm sorry." Chevalier squeezed his shoulder once, then stepped back. "I need to get back to Philly. For what it's worth, I do think you should call him. And, Colin?"

"Hm?"

"Don't spend too long out here. It's good to help out, but you've got someone waiting for you back home." They parted ways. Armsmaster brought up his schedule in his helmet's display and eyed it, sighing.

The worst thing about Michael was how often he was _right_.


	16. November (7)

**November (7)**

Yu took some time before school to unpack the coat and helm Kanji had sent him. They fit perfectly, as he'd expected of the young tailor, but it didn't mean the costume was complete just yet. It had come with gloves, complete with golden claws at the fingers, just barely short enough to keep from interfering with his swordwork, but he would need to pick up some black pants and suitably high boots if he wanted to finish off the ensemble. Yu wasn't planning on going to see Bitch until around 6pm, so that left him plenty of time to get down to Lord's Market and see what he could find.

Still, Yu couldn't quite shake the impression he was forgetting something, so he stood in front of the bathroom mirror for a few moments, looking over his reflection. Of course— his eyes. His own calm grey eyes staring out from Izanagi's face was a bit jarring, but more than that, he could almost hear Yumi lecturing him. Possibly accompanied by a light smack to his arm with a rolled-up script. It was said that eyes are the window to the soul, and Yu believed it, but for the purposes of drama they were the first and foremost indicator of expression. When speaking to someone, when trying to understand how they feel, most people look first to the eyes. Yumi, even in high school, had already been a pro at changing what message someone got from looking at her eyes; the direction of her gaze, the set of her eyelids, the presence of unshed tears— Yumi _lived_ the role she was playing, and you could always see it in her eyes.

Yu took off the helm and peered at the inside, considering. He measured the sockets of the mask as best he could at a glance, then headed back for his room and set the helmet on his desk. He opened up his drawer of mementos and carefully sorted through it, until he found the pair of yellow-lens glasses that Teddie had made for him, so long ago. Yu prodded carefully at the glasses, loath to break them even on accident (though, upon thinking of it, they'd certainly held up to some impressive abuses in combat), but to his surprise the lenses popped out of the frames easily. With Teddie's inexplicable magic apparently still at work, Yu was almost not even surprised to find the lenses fit inside the Izanagi mask.

He put the helmet back on, and went back to the mirror. Izanagi's eyes stared back at him, golden, possessing an eerie glow all their own. Perfect.

* * *

School was a slog, not for any actual work that needed to be done, but because Yu was excited to get started on his _actual_ priorities of showing Bitch his super cool costume, and going out Sentai-ing with her, and rescuing _all_ the dogs. It got to the point where people were remarking on his good mood, which was something of an aberration this close to an Endbringer attack, and Yu started casting about for something more sober to focus his attention on. Naturally, his uncle was a pretty no-nonsense topic of interest.

Saying he worked with the PRT wasn't a complete lie, though obviously not a complete truth either, but Yu hadn't been willing to press at the time. Now, though, it was fair game, and once he found an opportunity in the computer lab, Yu started searching for pictures of the local hero team. That meant Assault, Velocity, Triumph, and Armsmaster, but Triumph was quickly discarded on account of his age. And then, all Yu had to do was take a good look at the remaining three heroes to spot a familiar, well-groomed goatee. Cactus presence: confirmed.

Yu eyed the promotional picture of the local Protectorate leader, frowning. Another search only turned up more of the same: always with the helmet on, a darkened visor obscuring almost all of his face, save for the beard and the stern set of his mouth. That was somewhat troubling. Most of the local heroes had at least their eyes uncovered, or visible through a lens— because the eyes are the first place people look to when trying to understand someone. The rest of the face, such as a smile, came second, and then focus moved to the rest of the body. Sentai teams tended to try and compensate for the loss of facial expression by adopting exaggerated motions and gestures, a practice Yu had noted also went for American heroes whose faces were obscured, such as the local White Rabbit he'd run into. Except for Armsmaster.

Yu, after some practice, had started picking up on reading his uncle's expressions more reliably— most of Mr. Wallis's expressions were conveyed through stance, and small movements. He rarely smiled or changed the set of his jaw at all, and while his eyes were expressive as anyone's, he tended to avoid looking directly at Yu, which made things a bit difficult. By common convention, Armsmaster should have been taking measures to compensate for that loss in expression his costume mandated, but instead, he seemed to go in the opposite direction entirely. Yu would have thought that would spell trouble for communicating with his team, but… well, according to the wiki, Armsmaster had been leading this team for years. Even if Armsmaster had managed to avoid learning to make himself understood more directly, surely his teammates will have learned how to speak Cactus by now.

The bell rang and the hallways became crowded with students fleeing the institution, prompting Yu to pack up his things and get to his locker. Chris caught up to him there, and with him were Dennis and the promised gym-going friend. Drat. Yu had kind of forgotten about that, asking Chris for a recommendation, and the promise of introducing him to a friend. Said new friend was a tanned-looking young man who introduced himself as Carlos. He certainly looked like he worked out a lot, and almost definitely had more than a casual interest in weightlifting. Yu really wanted—and needed—to get to the Market still, but a promise was a promise. He resolved to try and be cheerful, and to go with Carlos. But he'd try and escape as soon as he could.

It wasn't until they got to the Olympic Fire gym that Yu started to feel truly invested in this idea, even if it had been his, because once they got inside the facility, Carlos's demeanor changed. The polite, functionary young man vanished with a grin and a holler across the mostly-empty workout floor. "Hey, what the hell are you doing here, _cabron_?"

"Could say the same! Preschool let out early?" There was a loud clang on the other side of the room, as a dark-skinned young man set an impressively-weighted barbell back into place. He wiped sweat off his forehead and into his cornrows before walking briskly in their direction. "Hope you brought your A game today."

"You know it! Also brought a friend. Brian, this is Yu. Yu, Brian. Try not to make any puns, I'm sick of 'em already. Yu said he wants to learn how to use all this stuff." Carlos gestured between them, and Brian offered a hand out to shake, which Yu took.

"Strong grip. You said you're new?"

"No, I said I am Yu," he grinned, while Carlos swore quietly. "But no, I have never really used a gym to exercise. I have mostly done sports, or trained with a friend."

"Fair enough. Carlos, why don't you show him around while I finish my set, then we can trade while you warm up."

"Sure thing. C'mon Yu, I'll give you the dime tour." He wasn't sure what money had to do with it, but Carlos took him around the gym and pointed out the different machines, and their uses, and after a while he switched places with Brian. The black teen was a stark contrast to Carlos in a way that left Yu scrambling to analyze. They both had a presence, a sense of building energy and anticipation, but Brian was cooler and more full of purpose than Carlos's quick intensity. It was _so familiar_ to Yu, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. They finished off the tour with an information packet, taken from a wall shelf near the entrance, and left Yu to look over it and sign the associated waivers necessary for a membership. He even took their inattention as an opportunity to quickly pull out his tarot deck and check the top card—Chariot, naturally—but that still wasn't explaining this pervasive sense of familiarity. So what was it?

Yu got his answer once he finished with the forms and went looking for the Chariot pair, and found them in a side room used for group classes and video-assisted workouts. They'd taken up position on a padded mat so they could spar with one another, of all things, and Yu watched from the doorway for a few moments without them noticing. They weren't using a formal style or rules, just battling all-out, each keeping their own preferences for combat: Brian was upright and focused on punches, while Carlos bent slightly and tried for grabs, arm-locks, and kicks. Recognition finally slammed home and Yu dug frantically for his phone, searching through the ringtones.

 _ **Featherman R!**_ Black Condor versus Red Hawk, friends yet rivals in an unspoken bond of brotherhood! Though they clashed on the mat and at times on the field, their mutual respect for one another ensured that when evil showed its face to the world, they stood united with their friends _FOR JUSTICE_!

Yu listened to the ringtone, stars in his eyes, until a cough interrupted his joy. Both Carlos and Brian were standing on the mat, giving him a sideways look. Carlos glanced at Brian and—seeing Black Condor was not going to speak up—kept to his role as the face and spokesman of the Sentai Youth and said, "Uh… Yu?"

Yu turned off his phone and slipped it back into his jacket, eyes bright as his smile. "The Henshin Color Grid _never lies_."

* * *

Bitch was happy to see him, in her own way, which was expressed through a raised eyebrow and a grunt. "That your costume?"

"Yes!"

"You said you were new."

No, he'd said he was— nevermind. "I just got it. A friend made it for me, and mailed it."

"Hm. 'Kay. What do I call you?"

"Uh…" Yu had to think about that one for a second. Capes used fake names to signal the role they were playing, and their powers, as far as Yu could tell. Older forms of drama did the same thing, and once Yu took a moment to imagine Yumi writing the script for this little adventure, he found his answer. "Banchō."

She nodded, then reached into a pocket and tossed him something metal— he caught it on reflex; a set of keys. "You can drive, right?"

"...in theory?" Bitch glared at him. "I can learn quickly! Can you show me?"

The lesson was quick (that one makes you go, that one makes you stop) because Bitch had other concerns. Her henchdogs lined up at her whistle, and before Yu's eyes they began to grow. They grew huge, unsightly, covered in bone spurs and rippling muscle, and scales and horns, until their noses cleared the roof of the beat-up old van Bitch had given him the keys to. Several things started making a lot more sense.

"You are Hellhound?" Yu asked her. Hellhound had been in the dossier he'd gotten from Naoto, along with her civilian name, but she'd always addressed herself as Bitch. Case in point, she quickly corrected him on her moniker, and he apologized. Still, it made things a bit… awkward. Wasn't Hellhound a villain? But, she was doing this to save dogs… honestly, that seemed to fit with what he knew of her personality. Yu doubted Bitch cared about heroes or villains, let others call her whatever, she had dogs to look after. Yu could understand that.

And then his worries were swept aside by something much less complicated—jealousy and longing—as Bitch put on a rubber mask and _climbed up on top of the Brutus kaiju_.

"You— you get to _ride them_?" Yu breathed. "That is amazing! Can— can I pet them?"

He was pretty sure he could sense Bitch's pleased smirk all the way to the dog fighting ring.

* * *

Bitch explained the outlines of her plan on the way, yelling at him from atop Brutus' back while he tried his very best to keep the van going in a straight line. It boiled down to busting in the front doors, scaring off the gamblers and fighting any capes, then grabbing all the caged dogs and getting them into the van before escaping. Simple enough. He had to assure her that he would be fine fighting any capes they came across, and while he very much doubted she believed him, she did seem to understand that he was willing to be a distraction at least while she got the canines secured.

And then there wasn't any more time for talking, as they got closer and closer to their destination, and the intermingling sounds of men yelling and dogs barking filled the night. Bitch whistled, and her three hellhounds sped up, leaving Yu to clumsily park the van outside while she enacted stage one of the plan and knocked half the front wall in. Yu kind of hoped that just meant the building was poorly constructed, because if not…

Yu charged inside, moving against the tide of fleeing spectators with ease; they parted like a wave around him, moving even further aside once he put a hand on his katana's hilt, ready to draw it. Bitch's hellhounds were tearing the place up, going after the braver, more foolish men who stayed to fight with guns and lead pipes. He very nearly joined them, a spike of worry climbing into his throat, but a flash of white caught his eye and he turned to face a familiar, tiger-shaped mask. Not far from Stormtiger, a… woman? With her head in a cage, and a pair of kamas; that had to be Cricket.

Stormtiger sent a lance of pressurized air at him, and Yu jumped to the side to avoid it— he hadn't switched his focus to Odin to nullify the Empire cape's attacks yet, and he'd rather not get hit when it might hurt. Cricket turned her attention to the nearest hellhound and leaped after it, flowing between its claws and bites like water, until abruptly the beast stumbled and whined, dizzy, and she began to slash at it with her weapons. They might have been kaiju at the moment, but they were still dogs— Yu would not let that stand.

Yu held the Arcana in his mind's eye and focused on the Magician, and in his soul Izanagi receded and Mada took his place. He turned the glowing eyes of his mask on the sonic woman, not caring if she wasn't paying attention to him, and held up one finger to his mask. "Shhhh."

Mada's whispers reached her, even if his did not. Cricket stumbled, then whipped around in surprise, trying to figure out why her power had suddenly abandoned her. Brutus, or maybe Angelica, punished her inattention with a single swat of a monstrous paw. And then it was just Yu and Stormtiger. Yu focused, and his soul shifted towards the Chariot. Futsunushi, God of Swords, adjusted his stance and held Yu steady.

The Primal Force he unleashed missed Stormtiger, the cape managing to jump over the swing of his sword with a gust of air. It did not miss the arena behind him, the cut extending long past his blade as a shockwave and splitting a deep gouge into the ring of sand, cutting through the nearby support pillars, and reducing a row of spectator chairs to splinters. He held back his strikes after that.

But he did not miss again.

* * *

Yu helped Bitch load cages of snarling, frightened canines into the van as quickly as he could— and with the strength afforded to his limbs with Izanagi's might behind him, it was _very_ quickly. She'd yelled at him to start as soon as she'd seen Stormtiger flee, one arm nearly severed, helped along by a confused and frightened Cricket. Not bad for a quick rematch, though Yu was very glad that according to the dossier, the Empire had a healer among them. Together, he and Bitch loaded the van full of dogs— and left the dead ones behind, to Bitch's obvious grief. This time, she drove the van with him, evidently wanting a smoother ride for the sake of her new friends, but her hellhounds had no trouble following their winding path back to her shelter. They seemed pretty unaffected by the fight, as well, giant tongues lolling in the simple happiness of chasing a car. Good for them.

Yu took the chance to slip out of his helmet and scrub a clawed gauntlet through his now-sweaty hair. He also decided to check his phone, looking for the time; it was just after 8:30 now. That hadn't taken nearly as long as it had felt like. And, on further inspection, there was a little icon on the phone's screen for his voicemail. He tapped at it, and listened to the ring. The recorded message followed soon after.

" _Yu, it's me,"_ his uncle's voice said. " _I decided_ _—_ _there was a change of plans, a little, and I'm coming back to Brockton sooner than expected. I'm sure you've got questions, and_ _—_ _well, we can talk tonight. I'll probably be home a little early, even, maybe around 9. Uh… see you then."_ Click. End of messages.

Yu pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the clock display.

" _ **Bitch stop the car I gotta go!"**_


	17. November (8)

**November (8)**

Dragon was willing to give him a lift on one of her remote-piloted transports, on its way back to Canada to pick up some tinkertech from one of her factories. As morbid a topic as it was, it was still good to touch base with her and compare observations of the battle. Armsmaster had lost track of things for a few minutes when a tail swipe from Leviathan had tossed him into a powerful undertow that had formed between several sunken buildings, and Dragon was curious to hear about how well his suit's environmental protection seals and emergency electrolysis system had held up. The former was built into every suit to a greater or lesser degree, but the water-to-air system was something he'd recently gotten working specifically for Leviathan fights, and Armsmaster was pretty pleased by its performance. There was still room for improvement of course, breathing pure O2 wasn't very sustainable and quickly had him lightheaded, and the hydrogen could be put to much better use than simply venting it. Swapping notes and theories on various gaseous compression techniques made for an enjoyable trip back to the States.

Dragon's presence, even remotely, was a balm on his nerves that he really needed at the moment. He'd gotten _some_ sleep in India, mostly just his typical 20-minute naps in between half-doses of his stimulant, but his schedule was so thrown off by the fight's aftermath and the recent troubles he'd had that the naps weren't really cutting it anymore. He needed to get back to his daily routine. Not just for the rest; he _craved_ the peace of mind that predictability afforded him. He set up a mental list of things yet to do today, and repeated it back to himself a few times as he set about checking them off, as soon as Dragon's droneship dropped him off at the Rig.

Touch base with Miss Militia for the after-battle reports— check. Call Director Piggot and let her know he was resuming normal duties— check. Recon report from Velocity regarding villain activity in the few days he'd been gone— check; Assault and Battery had just gone out with a response team after someone called in to report Hellhound being sighted on the move, but it didn't seem like they needed his help on this one, which for once he was thankful for. Get his armor secured in his lab instead of his PRT building office, so he could run a computer systems diagnostics overnight as well as unpack the recorded data from the Leviathan encounter— check. Get to the PRT building, so he could drop off a clean bodysuit to wear tomorrow and retrieve his laptop— check.

Go home and talk to Yu— in progress.

He got back to the house a little later than he'd thought, but not by much, and once he got inside the sound of running water in the shower told him where Yu was. He took the opportunity to start unpacking and setting up his computer, as once he synced it up to his server he could download the data retrieved from his suit and go over it tonight. The less math-crunching bits of it, anyway, like the performance specs of his tech. Most of the recorded data was going to be analyzed, torn apart, and analyzed again for his combat prediction algorithm. The program he'd developed had done a fine job mimicking being a Combat Thinker and was an invaluable resource, effectively making him better at fighting villains every time he subsequently encountered them— and if that wasn't the quintessential definition of Tinker, nothing (that didn't incorporate swear words) was. But as always, there was room for improvement, and the goal he'd set got one step closer with the data he'd collected this past battle. Leviathan wouldn't surface again for another 5 or 6 months, and he needed it to be perfect by then.

Armsmaster managed to tear himself away from the computer before he could lose himself in equations and numbers, and just in time too, as Yu stepped out of the bathroom already dressed and toweling his hair dry. His face lit up at the sight of Colin sitting at his desk. "Uncle! Welcome back!"

"Ah— hi." And there went his focus. Why wasn't there some sort of flowchart or outline he could follow for this? All of the 'so you're a cape' pamphlets produced by the PRT involved teenage capes and normal adult parents, not the other way around. "So…"

"So, come and sit down, and let us talk." Yu turned and headed for the couch, not the kitchen table as Colin had expected. When Colin hesitated, Yu waved to him, trying to coax him closer. He didn't exactly have a lot of other options, so he left his work desk and sat down on the faded couch, taking up the side opposite Yu. The table would have been a more practical choice for conversation, or at least a more dignified one than sitting half-sunken into the cushions… but now that he was sitting somewhere comfortable he didn't really have the will to leave. Sigh.

He was still trying to choose an opener when Yu got started with the interrogation. "How was the battle? Were you hurt? Are you really Armsmaster?"

Okay, sure, he could just answer questions. That was easy. "About a 30% casualty rate for attending parahumans, so it wasn't bad. I got a little banged up, but nothing serious, and how did you guess that?"

"You have a beard." Yu stared at him, completely serious.

"Is that it?"

"Well, no," he conceded. "You said that you worked for the PRT, and while that was not entirely true I am not angry about it. So I knew you must work for the Protectorate instead, and of the local Protectorate, only one has a beard. And that is Armsmaster." He seemed pretty proud of himself, but there was a rather gaping flaw in that logic that Colin felt compelled to point out.

"I could have been lying about working for the PRT, Yu. I could have been a villain, even. You shouldn't assume any cape you meet is friendly."

"No. You are too good a person to be a villain, Mr Wallis." Which only went to show that Yu's judgment of character was not as good as the teen thought it was.

"...regardless, Yu, this is very important: you cannot tell anyone about this. Not who I am, and not that you know. I'm serious. It could and would get you killed." Colin was pretty well insulated from a potential Fleur Scenario, but Yu had no such protections. He'd been hoping to avoid this discovery for exactly that reason. Assassinations and kidnappings were somewhat rare among capes, but they did happen, and unlike a straight-up fight they weren't something you got a second chance on if you messed up. Stupid of him not to have a contingency in place for attending an Endbringer battle, but, too late now.

"I understand, uncle…" Yu said, his voice going quieter. He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Are you going to fight them again?"

"Yes."

"You are so quick to say that."

"That's my job, Yu. It's what I'm here for." He'd already joined the Protectorate when Behemoth first appeared. He hadn't been ready—nobody had, really—but after a few years of building up his tech he'd started attending every battle he could, only sitting out in the event of injuries keeping him from fighting. The last one he'd missed had been all the way back in '98, after tangling with the Slaughterhouse 9. Yu went quiet again, and after a moment he looked away from Colin and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"We talked about it. In Inaba, I mean," he began. "My friends and I— there are eight of us. We all received our powers in a similar way."

 _Eight_? That was enough to pour ice water into Colin's veins. That was one hell of a Mass Trigger event. Anything capable of that should have been reported. That he hadn't heard a word of it left a very poor alternative. "All at the same time?"

Yu shook his head. "One at a time, over the course of the murder investigation. Several of us were kidnapped, it— it was a difficult time." Colin closed his eyes for a second. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Eight kids—at _least_ eight—Triggered by the same murderer? Whoever they were, they were lucky they had already been caught before he'd heard about this.

"But, after the killers were caught… we talked about the Endbringers. About what we would do, when one showed up." Yu hesitated for a moment, looking over at him. "I know that it must sound too easy, when I say that we were willing— _are_ willing—to die for each other. To make that sacrifice. But it is true."

He was right, it did sound too easy. Yu was young yet, and that was a decision that should only be faced by adults. Or at least it would be, in a more perfect world. "It is easy to die for someone you care for, uncle. But it is hard—very, _very_ hard—to let someone you care for die _for you_. And I did not want to see that happen. So… I made us promise that we would not. That we would not go when called, unless we could all go together."

Yu went quiet again, but soon started to fidget, and finally looked back at him, face pensive. Colin only realized he was supposed to say something when Yu spoke up, saying, "Is that… okay?"

Was it? Colin tried to imagine making a similar decision, having bonds that were stronger than this awful necessity. He couldn't.

"Yes, Yu. It's okay." Just because he was empty didn't mean his nephew had to be.

* * *

Colin went to bed early that night—meaning around 12:30 instead of 2—hoping to take the edge off some of the sleep debt he'd been accruing. He woke up to tension wrapping a tight band around his head, the squeeze of pressure making his heartbeat throb against his temples. Colin rolled over on the bed, grabbed his watch on the nightstand— 1:36 AM. He could have wept.

Lying back and staring at the darkened ceiling only threatened to make the room start spinning, so he got up enough to sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, heels of his palms pressed hard against his eyes. What was _wrong_ with him?

 _(Nothing he could do anything about)_ , he conceded after a moment. He'd seen a doctor already, a year ago now. Tension headaches, he'd been told. He'd been given some painkillers and told to take time off of work, which was clearly not an option, and the next step was an MRI, so… he'd adapted. Learned to live with it. Like he always did.

" _(If I'm going to be awake, I should just go back to work,)_ " he heard himself mutter. God, he was so tired.

"I don't want to," he said into the empty room. "I feel awful."

" _(There's no use complaining.)_ " He snapped his watch back onto his wrist, and turned the alarm off on autopilot. Everything was hazy, and slow. He felt like he was sleepwalking.

"No…" He protested, even as he got up. He was already dressed, since he slept in his clothes— he'd change them after his workout in a few hours. Colin walked out of his bedroom, gravitated towards his laptop still humming on his desk. He packed it up with clumsy movements. "This isn't…"

" _(I'll feel better when I've got something to do,)_ " he insisted, and went looking for his coat and his keys.

* * *

Yu opened his door a little wider, mindful of the hinges, and watched his uncle shuffle out the kitchen. He waited for the door to slam shut before throwing his own open. This was wrong, something was wrong. So what was he going to do about it?

There was no time for his costume, but he pulled on his boots and grabbed his sword. He ran to the living room and crawled through the TV as quickly as he could, already hearing the car engine start before he passed through the screen. He wouldn't be able to follow his uncle on foot, and he couldn't sneak into the car where his uncle could see him, and there wasn't anyone he could call for help. That left him only one option, so he got to his feet in the darkened world behind the TV, and ran out of the barely-there shell of Mr Wallis' house.

He could see the pale haze of his uncle in the car, and sitting next to him was his Shadow. It had one hand gripping the air where Mr Wallis' head would be, either around the back of his skull or his neck, if he had to guess. Yu's eyes narrowed. Was Mr Wallis' Shadow… _hurting_ him?

Then the phantom image of the car started to move, and there was no more time to speculate. Yu gripped his sword tighter, and offered a quick plea to his Persona for strength. Then he started to run, and followed his uncle into the Twisted City.


	18. November (9)

**November (9)**

Armsmaster was sitting at his workbench in his lab, one hand holding a pencil that was poised above a sheet of paper already half-filled with sketches, equations, and shorthand notations. He stared down at it, his imagination supplying the hum of an overworked processor as he waited for the notations and blueprints to start making sense. A… neural interface port, if he was reading his own handwriting correctly. A cybernetic implant for the base of the skull, meant to provide an interface access for complex tinkertech. Armsmaster frowned at it, then reached into a nearby drawer for a protective plastic sheet for the document. He slid the blueprint inside, then searched the shelves above his workbench for this year's binder full of design documents and added the interface port blueprint to the increasing majority of inventions that would never, ever make it past the Tinker Oversight Committee.

His headache traced a line of fire along the outside of his skull, following a vein and making Armsmaster wince and shut his eyes for a moment.

Armsmaster lived by the same principles of his tinkertech specialty. Most people called it 'Efficiency,' and indeed that was what was written in his personnel file. It wasn't an incorrect term, but it wasn't precisely what Armsmaster thought of it as, either. To him, it was more properly termed _Reduction_ , the process of compressing whatever it was applied to into the smallest usable form. Partly that involved substituting materials and components for higher quality ones, and that _was_ more efficient, but it also involved subtracting extraneous components. If the casing doesn't _have_ to be ¾ an inch thick, then build it thinner; if this circuit doesn't _need_ a dedicated cooling system when something nearby that _does_ can handle it instead, then let it produce heat. If he took away what wasn't necessary, it left more space and more materials for other things that _were_. Simple.

Simple enough that it could be applied to a lifestyle. He already lived according to a schedule, kept his time neatly sectioned and organized so that he always knew what he should be doing. Applying principles of reduction to that was both easy and effective: a few minutes here and there, because he didn't _need_ to spend that much time on reading, didn't _have to_ rent a movie every week, it wasn't _necessary_ to get eight hours of sleep a night. Or six, or even four.

So taking it a step further was the logical progression. He'd cut away as much of his life as possible, but it still wasn't enough. He needed more, from both himself and his tinkertech, and it was getting less and less possible to improve under current parameters. Swapping out his worn and inefficient components had an undeniable appeal. The closed binder on his workbench held designs and theories for doing exactly that, held lots of them. Exactly none of them had been sent before committee for approval, and none of them ever would. The PRT had kept Tinkers on a tight leash when it came to invasive procedures and unnecessary surgery ever since Sphere decided to ruin trans-humanism for everyone.

Building these implants would mean walking away from the Protectorate, from everything he'd done or tried to do. It was a line Armsmaster refused to cross.

His vision actually went dim for a second as his headache, evidently well on its way to a full-blown migraine, ratcheted up the pressure another few notches. God damn. Was this even sustainable? He could handle pain or fatigue, but both at the same time to this degree was ruining him. How had he even managed to do his workout today, when right now he could barely see?

He… _had_ done his workout, right? Armsmaster squinted at his helmet's display, and brought up his performance logs. He hadn't; that shouldn't be possible. It was on his schedule, _right there_ , and his itinerary was marked by alarms to remind him to transition from one task to the next. Armsmaster felt anxiety try to claw at his chest as he brought up his schedule, saw the red tint to an unbroken line of unacknowledged time blocs. He'd— he'd turned off the timer.

Armsmaster _never_ turned off the timer. In fact he'd set his schedule up to not even have a single on/off toggle for the reminders, he had to dismiss each one individually. It was there to keep him from just losing track of time and tinkering indefinitely. A safeguard against his own hyper-focused tendencies. And he'd _turned it off_? He didn't remember doing that. Hell, he couldn't remember the exact time he'd come into work, today. _How long_ had he been sitting here?

It was a testament to how shot Armsmaster's nerves were at the prospect that he had pulled out his work phone and was beginning to seriously consider calling the Master/Stranger Crisis line, when it rang from an incoming call and nearly made him jump out of his skin. His fingers fumbled with the headset connection to his helmet. "Armsmaster here."

" _Hey, Armsmaster. I saw you hadn't confirmed for the briefing and just thought I should remind you,"_ Miss Militia said from the other end of the line.

"Thank you. I got a bit… sidetracked with tinkering, haven't checked my email this morning."

" _I thought that might be it. It's in fifteen minutes, though, so you should finish up whatever you're doing."_ There was a pause before she continued. " _Are you feeling alright? You sound a bit tense."_

No. No, he was not alright. He was so tired he was having short-term memory loss, and so upset he'd nearly called for someone to come and get him. Just the thought of admitting to either of those was enough to tighten his throat and squeeze the breath from his lungs. But Miss Militia _was_ asking, and she sounded concerned, and maybe she wouldn't hold it against him. Armsmaster took a careful breath to help keep his voice steady. "N-no, I'm— I've got a headache."

" _Oh, is that all?"_ Miss Militia gave a small laugh, " _Better take an aspirin or something. I'll see you at the briefing."_

* * *

A year ago, the prospect of getting lost inside the TV would have put a chill down his spine. There was a good reason the Inaba Investigation Team had vowed to always use the same entry point, and most importantly, to never come alone. The world inside the TV was dangerous, filled as it was with the repressed and usually negative sentiments of mankind given form and hunger. It was almost ludicrously so in the Twisted City version of Brockton Bay. Shadows were crawling over everything, amorphous blobs that only took on actual form once observed. Yu recognized a good many of them, actually, which was something of a surprise. In Inaba, Shadows had taken more… he supposed abstract forms was a good way to put it. Brockton Bay housed orders of magnitude more people, however, and by extension more of whatever thought-stuff shadows were born from, and here they were robust and strong and full of potential, so coherent they were closer to untamed Persona than most. Yu spotted a Decarabia clinging to a broken window, and a Genbu near a crosswalk. Over there was Belphegor, staring out at him from an alleyway (of which there were entirely too many), and that dot he saw was a diminutive Pixie flying _very very fast_ away from him.

It _probably_ got out of range of the next Megidolaon. Probably.

The phantasmal car that had his uncle and his uncle's Shadow had outpaced him—Yu had long legs and could certainly move when he had to, but there were limits—but that was okay. He knew where they were going, after all. The wide castle gate that towered over the Twisted City's buildings and stretched into the Bay proper could only be the two Protectorate buildings, the PRT headquarters and the repurposed oil rig. Once the car had gotten far enough ahead of him, the alleys had closed in, leaving Yu stranded in a labyrinth of brick and metal walls and grime, and practically tripping over shadows as they took form, took a look at his face, and made valiant attempts to get out of his way. Most of them, at least. The stronger and more aggressive shadows still tried to stand against him, slowing his pursuit. It was an unacceptable delay, so he'd opted to take care of the ruinous maze in front of him and the way back to Mr Wallis' house behind him by simply reducing everything in his path to rubble. Izanagi-no-Okami's boundless energy was more than up to the task, and Yu more-or-less bulldozed a straight line to the foot of the PRT's castle gates.

To Yu's surprise, things became considerably easier once he got inside the building. The shadows inside were far fewer in number, generally peeking around the stonework buttresses before electing to head in the opposite direction, and he paused his rampage to consider that curiosity. It always seemed to cycle back to people, the throng of humanity all connected to the Sea of Souls, so perhaps the relative sparsity of shadows was simply because there were fewer people inside the PRT's walls than inside the city as a whole. It made a sort of sense, but it was still an inversion of what he'd experienced in Inaba; powerful, strong-willed shadows tended to draw others to them, both to serve them and to outright absorb them, so when someone was thrown into the TV and spawned a Shadow Self of their own, the lesser forms would inevitably flock to them, all taking up residence in the distorted landscapes that grew wherever such strong Shadows arose.

Then a figure walked out of a doorway ahead of him, and Yu was forced to revise his theory almost immediately. It was humanoid, though oddly indistinct, and once it got close enough to make out details, Yu found that much of its surface, skin and clothing alike, was patterned more like… paper? There were words scrolling across every inch of it, like some scribe was constantly recording every detail of the world around it in some endless tome. Interspersed between bursts of unreadable words were diagrams and pictographs of different armaments, all sorts of knives and guns and at one point, a sketch of a pair of brass knuckles. Huh.

The scrollwork figure was closely following another ethereal wisp of a person, just like the armored Shadow that was following the faint outline of Yu's cactus; with a start, Yu realized this must be another Shadow Self. It, too, was a bit more abstract than the near-identical copies he and his friends had faced, and it was following an impression of a person, when Yu had never come across a similar occurrence anywhere else. It was leaving footprints of its own scripts and diagrams wherever it walked, though the prints quickly faded back into the gray slates of the castle floors. He hadn't checked to see if his uncle's Shadow produced a similar effect, but the rest of the similarities… Two meant the start of a pattern, so what was the common denominator?

Yu hesitated, then started following the archival Shadow from a safe distance. This was one of the buildings where the city's heroes worked, where Armsmaster worked. The common feature may well have been parahumans; he'd never run into any in Inaba, to his knowledge. He'd also never seen a Shadow Self that didn't look like its human counterpart, never seen a ghostly overlay of where a person was in the real world, never seen more than one Shadow Self in an area at the same time. The distorted landscape of the PRT building hadn't been made by one Shadow, but _several_. And perhaps that meant the smaller shadows weren't missing, they were just being divided among many larger Shadows.

That— Yu didn't even know what the implications of that were. He didn't have time to spare to untangle them, the situation was bad enough without more dire news.

He followed the Shadow until it retired to a small room, where its ghostly companion sat down—Yu supposed it must have been an office, or similar—and the area clearly _belonged_ to this Shadow in a way the hallways and open spaces didn't. The information it left in its footprints didn't fade, here, just joined the continuing pattern of records that adorned every inch of the room. Yu got the impression that he didn't want to be in one of these parahuman Shadows' territories for long, if he could avoid it, so he backed out of the office and stood in the PRT castle halls again. It was something of a disturbing phenomenon, but if it was common for parahuman Shadows to imprint on their environment like this, then perhaps he could use that to find Mr Wallis? He picked a direction and set off, on the lookout for anything resembling wires, or machinery.

* * *

It felt like it took hours before Yu finally found a pattern of gears being traced on the stone floors. He'd run across easily a half-dozen different imprints in his explorations, a few of them repeating as he came across multiple areas all 'owned' by a particular parahuman. But this was the only one to appear mechanical in nature, which fit with what Yu remembered of his uncle's Shadow, so he picked up his pace until the increasingly-common details of wires and circuits led him to a metallic sliding door, reminiscent of the ones he'd seen in Naoto's space behind the TV.

Inside was what had once been a lab, the basic shape reminding Yu of science classes and workshops, but it was hard to imagine it being used for that purpose now. The floor, walls, and ceiling had been covered in different examples of technology, gears and wires and pipes and circuitry all layered atop one another so thickly that Yu felt a need to duck his head just standing inside; so much space was taken up by machinery that the room had become claustrophobic. Yu got a glimpse of the ghostly presence of someone sitting at a crowded workbench, but his attention was quickly diverted by the halberd being brought down on his head in a whistling arc.

Yu dove to the side and the weapon clashed on the gear-covered floor with a spray of sparks. Still holding the haft of the weapon—still _attached_ to the haft, he amended—was Armsmaster.

Superficially, the Shadow looked a lot like the promotional posters of Armsmaster he'd seen. Tall, armored, with a halberd fused to where one arm should have been. But the Shadow had wires and tubes and other nameless, metallic parts hooked all through it, with no visible reason or pattern to the placement; Yu even saw one piece that looked like it went _into_ Armsmaster's neck, just above the collar of the chestpiece. And the armor itself— there was something slickly organic to the way the light hit it, very much at odds with the supposed mechanical appearance it tried to project. It looked wrong, disordered, and it was odd to watch the familiar face underneath that visored helmet frown at him while he scrambled to his feet.

 _(It's not enough for you to be a distraction, you have to come in here directly and interrupt my work?)_ The Shadow shook its head at him, like it had the gall to be disappointed. _(I won't abide that.)_

"And what work is that?" Yu asked, and drew an inch of steel from his sword's scabbard in warning when the Shadow stepped closer. "Because it looked as though you are hurting Mr Wallis."

 _(I'm helping him, of course. Behavioral reconditioning. Just like Pavlov.)_ The Shadow waved a hand to gesture over at the workbench, where Yu assumed his uncle was sitting in the real world. At the Shadow's gesture, the barely-there figure twitched, putting a hand up to its head as though in pain. Needles extended from the headrest of the chair for a moment, digging into the figure's neck for a brief, punishing moment. The casual cruelty set Yu's teeth on edge.

"You are hurting him."

 _(So?)_ Unbelievable. _(That is none of your business. You need to leave and stop bothering me, one way or the other.)_

"No, I will not leave. You are his Shadow, right? You are a part of him, why would you choose to do this to him?"

 _(...'part of him?' Part of_ that _miserable asshole?)_ Yu saw the Shadow grimace. _(Why would I even want to be?)_

 _(I helped give him what he wanted, and_ now _he's whining because he decided he doesn't have the stomach to do what it takes to succeed? Then he deserves to be left behind!)_ The Shadow stepped closer, its footsteps heavy with the weight of its armor. This close, Yu could see the key he'd spotted the first time he'd seen the Shadow, not hanging from its neck as he'd thought but set into the chestplate of the armor directly. Thin wires like roots or veins spread outward from it; why did something mechanical look so much like it had had been grown instead of made? _(So it's a good thing I'm beyond needing him. He's not going to keep holding me back, not anymore.)_

"I do not think that you know what you are doing," Yu cautioned the Shadow. "You are a Shadow, you are part of him. You cannot force him to accept you by doing this."

 _(Didn't you hear a word I just said?)_ The Shadow brought its halberd down to strike the floor again, growing furious at Yu's denial of its agency. _(I am a Shadow_ _—_ _the_ true _self! Being 'accepted' by him is no longer necessary, and I never keep_ anything _I don't need!)_

That was more like it. Yu drew his sword in earnest. Powerful or not, breaking the rules or not, no Shadow was going to hurt his uncle. Not while Yu had a say in it. He'd beat this rogue Shadow down until it learned to face the Truth.

The Shadow planted its halberd in the ground with a resounding clang, then raised its other arm high, ready to strike Yu with the power of its will, and Yu brought up his sword to guard against—

 _(Persona!)_

…

. . .

 _ **WHAT?!**_

(Recommended listening: Master of Shadow, P3 OST)

The Shadow of Colin Wallis flowed like smoke and oil, billowing outwards and leaving Armsmaster's armor empty as it reformed above it. It was humanoid, mostly, still tethered to the armor by those inescapable wires and corded pipes like a genie to a lamp. Half of it was a man, encased in golden armor and trappings of authority as befitted the Emperor arcana, but the rest was machinery— corroded, ill-placed machinery, pressed into the rough shape of an arm and part of the torso. The mechanical arm was as long as Armsmaster was tall, and its 'hand' was a haphazard collection of tools and parts of bladed weapons. Golden color spread out from where the Swiss-army hand touched the floor of the lab, pooling like a blight.

It swung its mechanical arm towards Yu in a wide sweep. He was braced for it, and while the hit shoved him back it did not bowl him over, but that golden blight seeped through the sleeve of his shirt and began to burn like venom. Yu hissed at the pain, and let his anger fuel his resolve. He pulled at his soul, and Izanagi-no-Okami readily responded. "Agidyne!"

A ball of fire detonated against the Shadow, the impact hard enough to throw it backwards until the connecting wires that flowed out of Armsmaster's armor strained. The armor itself didn't react at all to the attack— but once the Shadow stopped reeling, it abruptly raised its halberd and charged at Yu. And Armsmaster was _fast_. It scored the weapon against Yu's side and, with a twist of its arm, flung him away. Yu rolled with the blow as best he could, scrambling to his feet before the Shadow's golden arm crashed down where he had been a second ago.

What Yu wouldn't give for Rise to be here now, relaying the observations her Persona could make about this nightmare! He'd have to make do with his own thoughts— with a pause to fling an electric bolt of Ziodyne at the Shadow, who shrugged it off. The armor and the Shadow were acting separately, that was important, and the Shadow was… trying to use _itself_ as a Persona for the armor? A Shadow Self _could_ become a Persona, if the person it came from could face the truth of their existence and accept it— but it was trying to do that for _Armsmaster_ , not for Mr Wallis. And it wasn't being a very good fit, he realized, as he eyed the corroded components that made up half of the Shadow's altered form.

Which meant that somewhere along the line, this entire situation had gone _very_ wrong. And he was not going to let it continue.

"Megidolaon."

* * *

Armsmaster sat in the briefing next to Battery, and her next to Assault, and tried to listen to the reports being presented on post-Endbringer triggers and parahuman activity in the city. He wasn't having much luck. It was taking all his concentration to stay still and upright, that migraine having pulled out all the stops and increased past anything he'd ever experienced in his _life_. He'd darkened his visor's internal display as far as possible to shut out the light already, and still his eyes ached. His ears were ringing, all he could hear were mumbles of his co-workers past the sound of his own pulse. The pain spiked, and he focused on just breathing slowly— don't move, don't make a sound.

Nausea abruptly gripped his stomach and tried to rise up his throat, and Armsmaster swallowed against it. This was insane— he couldn't just walk away from a meeting, could he? But if he stayed, he was going to be sick right here, in front of everyone. The mortification was enough to overrule his professionalism, and he stood up from his chair as carefully as he could. It still sent a wave of dizziness through him. "Sorry. I can't— I need to go."

He ignored the louder sound of voices, rendered indistinct by pain, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other long enough to walk out the conference room door. Keep going. A little further. He stumbled a few feet later, and caught himself on the wall.

A dizzying blur of red passed him and coalesced into a person just in front of him. "Hey, Boss, are you oka—"

Through the visor, he saw Velocity's face go white as a sheet.

"I—" Armsmaster said, his tongue suddenly too clumsy to complete the thought. He felt something drip on his face, fall through his beard. He tasted copper.

Velocity tried to grab for him, but the floor managed to outpace the speedster when it suddenly shifted to the side and rose up to meet him. Vision failed him completely.

"Oh shit, oh _shit_ someone call an ambulance!"

"What the hell's going on? Armsmaster?"

"I said call an ambulance!"


	19. December (1)

Bitch woke with a start to the sound of her dogs all beginning to bark and fuss over something. She sat up as soon as she shoved Brutus off her chest, and while both he and Angelica were sniffing and perking their ears up, they didn't seem upset over any intrusion. A few clicks of her tongue and her closest trio of hounds all got up with her, and set off in search of the disruption. She paused long enough to grab a worn baseball bat from its place beside her sleeping room's door, then followed.

They led her to the front entrance of the old warehouse she was living in, and it took getting very close to the door to finally hear the knocking that had woken up the pack. Brutus made a pleased noise and started wagging his tail, so the bat probably wasn't necessary. Bitch set it aside and pulled at the door's rusted handle.

Her part-timer was standing just outside, one hand still raised to knock again, the other just barely hanging onto the strap of a large black duffle bag at his feet. He didn't raise his head when she opened the door, just hung his head a little lower like a kicked puppy. Angelica paced closer and whined at his legs.

"Bitch," Yu whispered, "can I stay with you for a while?"

 **December (1)**

Dauntless knocked on the door marked 526, simple courtesies a habit he vowed to never lose sight of, even in extreme situations. It was already open so the nurses and techs could come and go more easily, and so that the security detail posted outside the door could see if anyone happened to be in the room when they shouldn't be; he'd had to stop and give the Master-Stranger verification code for the day before he could enter. He wondered, briefly, when the next shift change for these men and women would be; it was already close to midnight, long after normal visitation hours, and Dauntless didn't know offhand if the PRT's non-powered troops split the graveyard shift up or not. Maybe he'd ask on the way out.

In the meantime, Dauntless took a breath, put a smile on his face, and walked past the half-drawn privacy curtain. He pulled a chair away from the wall and set it a bit closer to the side of the bed, then sat down. "Evenin', sir. Thought I'd drop by and see how you were doing, give you an update on things, all that. Hope you don't mind how late it is, we're trying to keep the media circus to a minimum. You understand."

Armsmaster didn't respond. Not that Dauntless had really expected him to: he'd been comatose for almost six days, now.

"Nice that they finally moved you out of the ICU, yeah? Guess that means you're past the worst of it. You had everyone walking on eggshells for a while, there." Dauntless took a moment to shore up the brittle edges of his smile, and examined his boss's face for any changes. Nothing he could spot, aside from the obvious lack of the bandages that had been in place the last time he'd seen Armsmaster. Instead, there was a new line of thick stitches across his shaved scalp, the scabs still fresh. The surgeons must have replaced the part of Armsmaster's skull they'd had to remove, to get at the ruptured aneurysm. And how crazy was that? Living in the city with one of the world's most powerful parahuman healers, and Armsmaster found the one type of injury Panacea couldn't cure. The reminder sobered Dauntless's expression, despite his efforts.

"...we did call her, you know. Panacea. Nothing she could do, of course, but we didn't know that at the time. I guess she saved the doctors a few minutes, pointing out what was wrong. So, I mean, that's still worth it, right? I heard that every second counts, when it's— y'know." Dauntless sighed, one hand reaching up to scrub at the back of his neck. Even just trying to say the word 'stroke' was hard. That wasn't a good sign for his courage. He tried again, from a different angle. "She… said that the bleed started in your Corona. Wasn't sure which, since they're really close together for you, I guess? And she couldn't say what that'd mean, y'know, long-term. Tch. She said you were lucky, actually. Bucked the odds once, 'cause most strokes are on the outside of the brain, not the inside; then again because a lot of strokes happen in the brainstem, and with a bleed like that you'dve been dead before you hit the ground, basically."

Dauntless looked down, away from Armsmaster, and instead worried at the linen sheets tucked securely into the bed. "I think she probably could've used some different words. Either way, she hasn't come around to see you since."

Dauntless fell quiet, not sure how to continue. The hospital room was oppressive, silent save for the very faint sound of Armsmaster breathing and the steady beeps of the heart monitor. There was a table pushed against the far wall, and a nightstand next to the bed, both completely clear of the clutter that Dauntless expected of an extended hospital stay; there weren't any cards or gift-shop balloons with 'Get Well Soon!' printed on the side, no flowers, not even any personal touches like a book to read, or a newspaper. It made the room feel more desolate and sterile than it had any right to be, not with who was staying in it.

"There's a fair bit of confusion over this, you know. I don't just mean 'what do we do now,' though there's that as well. More like, 'who are we supposed to tell about this?' We pulled just about all of your records. You never filled out any emergency contacts, no nothing. And that can't be right, sir. Everybody's got to have _somebody_."

They had found two names, actually, listed together: Allen and Akane Wallis. The problem was _where_ they'd been listed, specifically on the medical information release forms. They were listed under 'Do Not Call.'

Except then, after Miss Militia had used the Master/Stranger protocols to justify digging the records out, they'd found the same two names listed as Armsmaster's Protectorate life insurance beneficiaries. Both forms had to be updated regularly, and the contradiction had left them all at a loss. And in the end, Armsmaster's room remained barren.

"Oh, uh— Dragon said she opened your Endbringer KIA note that you left with her. Said you'd added your nephew's number just before the last attack, so we called him. We, um…" Dauntless sighed, and hung his head, for all the good it would do. "I'm sorry, man. We messed up on that. We told the kid we couldn't just leave him alone, so the PRT was gonna pick him up and call his parents, and… he didn't take it well. He wasn't at your house when we checked, and so far we haven't been able to track him down. I hope he's safe."

Even comatose, Dauntless could feel the cold weight of Armsmaster judging him. Despite knowing full well that it was only his imagination, Dauntless couldn't suppress the shiver of dread that worked its way down his spine. If there was any good luck still allotted to him in this world, Dauntless would not be the one giving this report to Armsmaster once he was awake. Thankfully, it would probably fall to Miss Militia: she was Armsmaster's second-in-command, so for the time being, she was leading the local Protectorate. Given the talk that sometimes filtered down from the higher levels of command, Dauntless had honestly been a bit terrified that _he_ was going to be put in the hot seat, as it were. Militia was a better choice, he thought, and so far she'd been up to the task, keeping everyone focused and moving as the situation had evolved from 'possible Stranger assassination' to a more mundane medical emergency.

Footsteps outside the room drew Dauntless's attention away from his thoughts, the sound much louder and heavier than any of the nurses. He heard some indistinct, muttered words exchanged with the security detail outside, followed by the footsteps carrying on into the room proper. Dauntless scrambled out of the chair and to his feet as Chevalier pushed past the privacy curtain, and offered his hand out for a shake on reflex. The leader of the Philadelphia Protectorate team took it, saying, "Dauntless, good evening. I didn't think anyone would be here."

"Oh, I can leave, that's no issue. I was just stopping in."

"No, no. You don't have to. Really, I'm glad." Chevalier glanced around the room for a moment, and Dauntless pushed the other chair towards him. The older hero nodded his thanks and sat down. "I was more worried that there _wouldn't_ be anyone visiting."

"Uh— y-yeah…" Dauntless reclaimed his own seat, and tried to resist the urge to hunch into it. Chevalier was almost a legend, perhaps not mentioned in the same breath as the Triumvirate, but usually in the one after, alongside heroes like Dragon, and Narwhal, and— well, like Armsmaster. But unlike the Tinker's calculating chill, Chevalier's presence held a warmth that made Dauntless place the hero higher, closer to what he thought a real champion should be.

And yet, he reflected, Chevalier was just like Armsmaster in that he managed to make Dauntless feel guilty without ever saying a thing.

"I— I didn't really… come to visit him. I mean, I'm _here_ and all, but… I don't really think that he can hear me, or anything." Chevalier turned to face him, putting aside his contemplation of the man in the bed. Dauntless swallowed, already regretting saying anything. "I just sorta wanted to see if I could handle it, I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

"You heard what happened already, right? We're all still hoping he'll wake up—I am too- but… well, I've heard that a lot of people who stroke out, they— they're never really the same again. Not all there." He shrugged, the motion so awkward it was painful. "And I remember my grandpa, he got Alzheimer's. Didn't live all that long afterwards, but I still remember, y'know, having to repeat things to him all the time. Remind him who I was, things like that."

"That sounds very hard to go through."

"It is. And I don't even know what it might be like for the other side of that. But it got me to thinking that maybe I should test the waters, so to speak? Come talk to him a bit, and see if I've got what it takes to— to keep doing it, if he ends up like Grandpa did."

Chevalier was silent for a long moment. "And what did you find?"

"...I don't know yet."

"Mm. That's normal, I think. As heroes, we're trained and prepared to deal with hardship. Heartache is far more difficult to brace for."

Chevalier fell to silence again, and Dauntless followed his example. He turned the older hero's words over in his head, as he watched the steady rise and fall of Armsmaster's chest. 'Heartache,' huh. He'd never heard the word used like that, without romance or drama. It made it sound more like the description of a wound, a hurt that needed to be bandaged and cared for. He supposed that made it rather fitting. Far all that he never really seemed to get along with Armsmaster, seeing his commander and teammate laid low like this provoked a response that did feel like pain.

"We thought he'd been attacked," Dauntless said quietly. "We figured he _had_ to have been, it was so sudden. He'd been just fine the day before."

"That," Chevalier responded, his tone careful, "I rather doubt."

They'd clung to the possibility of malice as long as they could, but evidence had started piling up against the theory within a day or so. No villain had claimed responsibility, when taking out the local leader would be bragging rights for any cape so monumentally stupid enough to attempt it. There was nothing to hint at illness in his Protectorate files, but a bottle of prescription painkillers in a locked drawer of Armsmaster's lab—written out to Colin Wallis—had led them to his civilian health records, and those had been a bit more damning.

Chevalier abruptly stood, then took a moment to squeeze one of Armsmaster's hands in his own before he turned to Dauntless. "Can I trouble you for a ride to the Rig? Miss Militia should still be up, and I think I need to speak with her."

"Oh! Yeah, of course. We can head that way right now, sir." Dauntless turned to regard Armsmaster for a moment, still silent and unmoving, unsure if he should say goodbye to keep up the illusion, or refuse to, and hold the refusal like a talisman. "...you think he'll wake up?"

"I pray that he does; I can do little else for him, right now. But his eyes move occasionally, as if he's dreaming, so I hope that is a good sign."

"Huh… yeah, you're right. Well, I hope it's a good dream, at least."

* * *

A sharp kick to his side, followed by the loud clatter of falling metal, jolted Colin to wakefulness. He gasped, sucking in a breath like a drowning man, and flailed to move away from the kick and sit up all at once. His vision was blurry, everything out of focus— or it seemed so, until he turned his head and saw the mirror image sitting a few feet away. The wires and broken bits of tubing he was tangled in retained a shifting lack of definition, but the Colin Wallis across the room from him was sharp and defined with crystal clarity. Even all cut up and bruised like he'd been dragged through Hell, his image was so familiar it was disorienting, until Colin got a second look at his double's face.

The Shadow of Colin Wallis turned yellow eyes that burned like coals on him, and his expression shifted to something part way between a grimace and a sneer. _(Well, look who's finally awake. Why don't you get comfortable, I think it's time we had a talk.)_


	20. December (2)

**December (2)**

 _(Well, look who's finally awake. Why don't you get comfortable, I think it's time we had a talk.)_

Colin instinctively tried to back up, put some space between himself and the Stranger so he'd have room to fight, but found himself hampered by a dead weight clasped around much of his body. His armor—of course he was wearing it, when was he ever not?—the power had failed, utterly, not even the backup supply kicking in to help him move. More than that, he realized, as he peered through the cracked lens of his helmet and got a good look at himself. His armor was fairly well _shattered_ , actually cut into pieces which shouldn't have been possible through any conventional means.

And… Colin squinted, tried to force his vision to clear so he could get a good look at the place he found himself in. The shape of the room was familiar, though there was so much twisted rubble coating the walls… was _this_ his lab? It looked like a _bomb_ had gone off in here, what was—

 _(A fine mess, isn't it? Are you proud? This is the end result of your actions, you realize. Well, mostly yours.)_ His doppelganger swept an arm out, gesturing at the indistinct ruin that surrounded them. _(A lifetime of work, come to what? Look at what Yu did to us!)_

Colin clenched his teeth, resisting the urge to snap at the Stranger. Colin hadn't done _jack_ to him, and he'd never destroy his _own lab_. He wasn't Leet, for pity's sake. Engaging with a Stranger was folly, his attention was better focused on finding a way out of this room. Even if that just meant waiting for extraction; his armor being broken so badly meant Dragon had to have picked up on it, at the least.

A crack in his helmet widened, spilling a few drops of ichor onto his neck as it fell off, and tumbled to the ground. Colin raised a hand to wipe at the liquid, and his fingers trembled. What was…?

 _(Oh, what's this? Can't hide behind your mask anymore?)_ The Stranger started to smile. It wasn't a friendly expression. _(Waiting for someone to come help? Now, that's not like you at all, is it? I thought you were invincible, a paragon, a hero. That's what Armsmaster is, right? Stands above the rest. Stands_ apart _from the rest. That's how he prefers it, right?)_

Colin pressed his fingers against his temples and squeezed. Everything was so hazy. He was somewhere strange, the whole room was destroyed, to such an extent that he felt like he should recognize it, but couldn't. He was wearing armor, too—it was his, right? But it was broken, pieces missing and others actually cut through. And was it supposed to _ooze_ like that? There were supposed to be circuits underneath the external alloy layers, weren't there? Yes… yes there were. This wasn't _his_ armor, was it? Just an imitation, something organic like the shell of a beetle, made to look like something stronger and more reliable.

 _(After all,)_ the man with his face continued, _(people can be intimidated by such a figure, want to keep their distance. It's for the best. Real heroes don't have time for all that nonsense. They don't want or need it. It's certainly not that nobody_ wants _to talk to him.)_

"That's— no, that's wrong," Colin shook his head.

 _(Is it?)_

"Yes, of course it is," Colin insisted.

 _(But you're always telling that to yourself. Why would it be a lie? Unless… you don't really believe it. Unless you don't really believe_ them _.)_

There was… something he was forgetting. Something about talking to strangers. The man with golden eyes was smirking at him, and he looked _so_ familiar, but for the life of him Colin couldn't place where he knew him from. "Them?"

 _(Your 'friends,' of course. If you can really call them that.)_ The familiar man with the golden eyes waved a hand, dismissive. _(They don't have any reasons to be sincere about it, do they? You certainly don't hold up your end of that relationship, how can you delude yourself into thinking that they do? Take Dragon, for example.)_

Dragon. Her warm smile came to mind readily, so vivid it made Colin's chest hurt at the recollection. He pressed a hand to his breast and felt his fingers brush over something that burned. What…?

 _(Right, Dragon. The Dragon that you've never actually met, because she_ just happens _to be too agoraphobic to come outside… or to let you visit, since she has to know you would, if she ever asked. Dragon who_ just happens _to enjoy all the same things you do! Same movies, same music, same hobbies! Or hobby, singular. She's a Tinker, just like you. Tinkertech is valuable, you know. Most Tinkers parcel it out very carefully, don't collaborate like you do. They certainly don't just give away ideas and designs like you do, but after all, you and Dragon are_ friends _, right?)_ The golden-eyed man sneered at him. _(How hard would it be, really, for her to write a chat program to respond to you while you're talking? Leave you listening to a machine while she goes and does something_ important _? Pay attention to you, smile a little, and you just lap it up, don't you? So desperate for a kind word you give her full access to your work. Oh, but I must be talking about someone else_ _—_ Armsmaster _wouldn't let himself be used like that. To Armsmaster, Dragon's just a colleague, and he keeps strictly professional relationships with his colleagues.)_

That— no, that was wrong. _Had_ to be wrong. Dragon wasn't like that. The stranger speaking to him didn't care.

 _(Oh, and your colleagues. They don't like you, but that's not a surprise. Their dislike doesn't matter to Armsmaster, only their ability. Except… maybe for Miss Militia. You've known her far longer, after all. She's always been fair, always reliable, usually kind, usually patient. Which is odd, isn't it? She doesn't have any reason to treat you differently.)_

Colin just shook his head, and focused on trying to peel off the bits of bleeding metal he was wearing. This man's words felt like poison, forced a bitter tightness into his throat, and he was beginning to want desperately to leave. He didn't want to listen to someone lie about Dragon, or Hannah. In fact, he felt an oddly strong compulsion to hide his face, physically look away from this— this— damn it, who _was_ this man? Colin had never seen him before in his life, yet here he was, acting like he knew Colin? Or—the thought made him curl in on himself a little, press a hand to that burning thing on his chest to hide it from view—not acting.

 _(_ She _doesn't, anyway. And yet she does it. Even when you blatantly ignore her, or push her away, she still tries to engage you. Why? What's she getting out of this? I doubt she'd just decide to trouble herself with you for no reason. Although…)_ Colin heard footsteps moving closer, and the strange man abruptly entered his field of view. He almost straddled Colin's legs, pinning him to the floor by his knees and reaching out a hand to pull Colin's face towards him, forcing him to look at the man and his cruel smile. _(She dated Chevalier for a while, you remember. They split on good terms. So I wonder, which is more likely: that she actually enjoys your company, such as it is… or that Chevalier asked his sweetheart to please be nice to his poor, retarded friend?)_

It hurt. Everything hurt. It burned like a brand and he clenched his fist around it tightly. He turned his face away but the man caught him, pulled him back. _(Oh, sorry, I must be mistaken. Armsmaster's not like that. He's a stoic, silent and proud. He's a champion, spoken in almost the same breath as Hero, isn't he? Just under the Triumvirate. Contemporary to Dragon, Narwhal, Chevalier…)_

"Michael."

 _(Yes, Michael. You and him go way back, don't you? He's always tried to look after you, in a way, hasn't he? Even when he doesn't need to. Do you know why he does that? Why he checks up on you, tries to make sure you're doing okay?)_

"Michael, he… he's my…"

 _(You. Are his. Replacement. Goldfish,)_ the man said, slowly and carefully. _(A stand-in for his murdered sibling. A prop he can take five minutes to go through the motions with, pat on the shoulder and feel like a good brother again. And you let him. And you know why.)_

"Stop," he whispered. "Please, stop."

 _(I can't stop. I can't look away, like you do. You know why I know all this, why I know what you're trying to do? It's because_ I am you _,)_ the stranger said, and smiled as though it was a victory. He stayed silent, and the man's fingers tightened on his jaw. Golden eyes narrowed first in suspicion, then in anger. _(...don't just_ sit there _. Why aren't you_ saying _anything?!)_

What exactly could he say? He couldn't _deny_ the man's accusations, not when they hurt too much to be baseless. But to agree with them was unthinkable. There was no way to proceed under an assumption of truth, if he tried it would _break_ him.

"I think that's quite enough."

He turned at the same time the man did, and they both watched a woman step carefully over and around the rubble. She had golden eyes too, but they didn't glare like the man's did. She had silvery hair with a hint of curls, carried a thick leather-bound book under one arm, and wore a blue frock the color of heartache. She pursed painted lips and made a show of looking around the ruined environment, while the man scowled and finally stood up, freeing his legs. He'd never seen her before, he was certain.

And yet…

"In the future, I suggest you choose your enemies more carefully," she said to the man, who only frowned harder. "It's plain to see a well-provoked Wild Card was here."

 _(I don't recall asking for your opinion. Who are you, anyway?)_

"My apologies, how rude of me. My name is Margaret." The woman smiled, but the expression faded as she looked between him and the man. Her gaze traveled over the ruined armor he was trapped under before finally stopping on him. "...how unfortunate. It takes a strong sense of identity to persevere in any place outside of reality. Not everyone can manage it. And yours is bound up in a mask that does not shelter you."

 _(He's not saying anything,)_ the man protested. He sounded frustrated, angry— and maybe scared. _(I shouldn't have to fade away just because he does!)_

"You're not blameless in this, you realize," Margaret scolded the man. "You cast aside your role. That… _thing_ was never going to acknowledge you, only use you. Can you say your usefulness would be infinite? If not, you were bound to fade anyway. That thing never keeps what it doesn't need, as you well know."

Fading. That's what he was doing, wasn't it? Growing distant, and lost, dispersing into the background static of the universe. He barely felt real, as it was. Just a wisp, hiding in a shell of dead metal, but still. He looked up at the woman and tried to speak. Once, twice. It was hard, much harder than he'd have thought, as though he'd actively rebelled against asking for help his entire life.

"I…" he whispered. "I don't want to die."

Margaret glanced down at him, surprised, but after a moment her expression began to soften. Her heels clicked on the scorched floor as she moved over to him, then knelt beside him. "As you are now, you don't have the strength of heart to live. Not by yourself. However… as my master says, the strength of one's heart is expressed in the bonds it forms and shares with others. You, too, have such bonds— can you reach them?"

He could picture their faces, recognize them better than he could himself. But the poison in the stranger's accusations still burned, still filled him with shame when he thought about reaching out a hand to them, even in a dream, or— whatever this was. Margaret waited patiently, watching him with her intent, yellow eyes. He looked away from them, unsettled, and stared at her hair instead. Silver hair, and calm eyes, and a gaze too intense to meet. Recognition dawned, and with it the memory of a bond never viewed through a visor. It was new, and fragile, but he grasped at it. "...my nephew. Yu."

If Margaret was surprised, she didn't show it, but her lips quirked a bit into a smirk. "Well, I dare to say he's certainly capable of strengthening even the flimsiest of relationships. And his stubbornness should match your own. I think his help will prove invaluable— you are certainly going to need it. Ah… and, one more thing."

Beep… beep...

Margaret leaned forward slightly, and wrapped one hand over his wrist. She tugged until he let her pull his clenched fist away from his chest, and then with careful fingers she pried his own back and away from the burning thing he still clutched in it. In his hand, wrapped up in splintering wires and a few thin, bare coils, was a key. It was old-fashioned, dingy brass, with large clumsy teeth that were probably incapable of catching any tumblers. It was the sort of key you only found in flea markets or very old houses, usually in a box of stray items passed on to a new owner. This one, he knew, had never truly fit its lock, but the loud _ker-chunk_ it made when turned served as a warning that its owner wished to be left alone.

The key to Brian's room.

Margaret flipped open her book, drew a sharp-cornered bookmark from its pages, and with a single deft motion sliced it through the wires tying Brian's key to the shattered breastplate he was wearing.

Beep… beep…

"I think it best that you hold onto this, instead of it holding onto you, Colin Wallis."

Beep… Beep…

* * *

In room 526 at Brockton Bay General Hospital, Colin Wallis opened his eyes.


	21. December (3)

**December (3)**

"'Sustained minor injuries in the battle against Leviathan, and is taking some personal time to recover and maintain his gear,' huh? News to me."

As greetings went, it wasn't the best, and when Battery failed to give Assault even a warning tap for his tone… well, Miss Militia knew how to recognize a fight she wasn't going to win. Not that she'd even wanted this particular battle in the first place. She sighed, sat at the cafeteria table across from the couple, and lowered her voice. "I didn't write the press release."

"You delivered it well enough," Assault muttered, and this time Battery did give him a warning tap.

"Don't start, please," she sighed again, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Battery gave her a questioning look. "I just got done with talking to first Chevalier, then Chevalier _and_ Director Piggot."

"That sounds… pleasant. What'd Chevalier want? This is a long way from Philly to just pop up out of the blue."

"Dragon spilled the beans to him about Armsmaster," Militia replied, and got a blank look in return. "He and Armsmaster are more or less best friends."

"Huh. Really? I didn't know that," Assault said. "How'd that happen? Shared love of being sticks in the mud?"

"No…" Militia trailed off, and waited for Assault to take a drink of his coffee. "They were roommates in college."

Battery waited for the choking and sputtering to die down a bit before she asked, "Are you being serious, or was that just an assassination attempt? Because good try if it's the latter."

"Serious. Chevalier did the work-study program in New York once he graduated from the Wards, before they changed that policy to the continuing education requirements we have now. Armsmaster was there doing the same thing, with a handful of hours every week studying under Hero." Miss Militia shrugged, saying, "I don't think they shared a dorm for more than a year, though. Armsmaster started taking online classes exclusively, so he started getting moved around the country to a lot of different teams."

"I wouldn't have expected Armsmaster to be the type of person to share a living space under any circumstances, but putting that aside for the moment— I'm guessing Chevalier didn't just drop by to visit?" Battery asked, giving the still-coughing Assault a few pats on the back in sympathy.

"He did, actually, but that just made him angry. He—" Miss Militia stopped, then grimaced. She lowered her voice a bit further. "Look, this doesn't leave this table, understood?"

Assault and Battery exchanged a glance, then huddled forward over the table a bit. Miss Militia followed suit, saying, "I don't know the details, but Chevalier had apparently spoken to Armsmaster recently. He thinks Armsmaster wasn't just sick, he thinks he may have Second Triggered."

"Are you _fucking serious_?" Assault hissed a breath through his teeth, while Battery gave Assault another warning tap on the shoulder. "No, I'm not buying it. Not possible."

"Why?" Battery asked, though whether she was speaking to her or to Assault, Miss Militia was unsure. Assault had much less hesitation.

"Loads of parahumans go through tougher stuff than their Triggers all the time; that's why Second Triggers are so rare that they're practically just a theory. The idea is you'd have to get into something _so_ bad, your first time around doesn't even compare. Which means Chevalier is speaking out of his ass, because _nothing happened_ to Armsmaster before he keeled over." Assault huffed, frustration coloring his words. "There's studies that suggest different types of parahumans Trigger in different ways, it's not exact, but it's there. And all signs point to Tinkers and, like, Masters being slow burns. I've been here for three years and he's been the _exact same_ the whole time I've known him."

Miss Militia was silent for a long moment. "He… didn't used to be this way."

"I'm with him on this one," Battery poked at Assault's arm, "but what do you mean?"

Behind her mask, Miss Militia chewed on her bottom lip in thought. She'd met Armsmaster through Chevalier years back, and to this day she did consider the Tinker a friend; as far as she knew, it was mutual. But while the Tinker had never exactly been _outgoing_ … "He wasn't quite so serious all the time. I mean, he still took things very seriously—I remember he was so easy to rile up, Mouse Protector had a ball with him—but you could still coax him out of his lab to go _do_ things, and he'd get excited about things that he liked."

"But for the past several years, he... " Militia shook her head. "Over time, he started to distance himself more. Didn't go out as much, spent more time tinkering. And I thought, that's just what he wanted, he's a Tinker, that's what makes him happy. Even when he started living out of his lab, I'm pretty sure everyone thought, 'yes, that's just like Armsmaster.'"

"Well… to be fair, that _does_ sound more efficient than going back and forth between work and home," Battery pointed out.

"That's exactly what I mean! It's things like that, we _expect_ it from Armsmaster. You saw those daily records he made that Dragon unlocked for us. All his time budgeted down to the minute like that? Three hours for sleep a day, at least eighteen spent working, this wasn't _new_! It's not like he was hiding it, the only real _surprise_ was his chart for keeping track of headaches." Miss Militia scrubbed a hand through her hair in frustration, messing up her ponytail.

"Okay, yes, it's kind of creepy, but it's not like anyone put a gun to his head and told him to stop sleeping," Battery argued. "He chose to do that. He certainly never complained."

"No, he didn't, so everyone thought he was fine, _I_ thought he was fine! Then along comes Chevalier, saying he _wasn't_ , and he _hasn't_ been for a really long time."

"And that's _my_ point," Assault countered, "because if Armsmaster was so miserable he could Trigger from it, we'd have _known_ about it! We would _have_ to, there's— there's no way the _whole team_ would just let that slip by, right?"

Assault's face fell as he looked first to Miss Militia's crumpled expression, then to Battery's growing frown. "...right?"

"That's what Chevalier wanted to know."

"But, assuming he's right, and Armsmaster really was unhappy," Battery spoke up, asking, "then why wouldn't he say anything? At _any_ point, even."

"...reciprocation," Miss Militia muttered, then coughed a bit when Battery raised an eyebrow at her. "Ah, well— look at it this way: if you were upset, or having troubles in your personal life, would you go to _Armsmaster_ to talk about it?"

" _No_ ," the couple answered in unison. Assault flashed Battery a quick grin before continuing, "He's not exactly approachable, you know? It'd be like expecting empathy from a cactus."

"But if nobody trusts him enough to confide in, why would he trust anyone to listen to him?"

* * *

Sun, in the reversed position: setbacks, a transient depression. Magician, in the reversed position: poor planning, misuse of talents. Temperance, in the reversed position: lack of vision, imbalance. Yu wasn't using a spread for the cards, just pulling them one by one, and while as accurate as ever they weren't telling him anything he didn't already know.

Which was, after all, the point of a Tarot reading. Perhaps it was only fair that after experiencing Igor's delight at drawing cards, Yu should feel the frustration of having them drawn for him. With a sigh, he started sliding the drawn cards back into the deck. It was almost time for him to be going, anyway, a decision made easier by the lack of customers in the Market today. Perhaps the chill in the air was to blame, or maybe Yu's expression conveyed a sense that he wanted to be left alone.

Or did, until one elegant finger pressed down on his Tarot deck, then slid the top card off of the stack to reveal The Star, in the upright position. "Oh, how responsive! I'm certain my master will be most pleased to hear you've a talent for this."

Yu's gaze whipped up until he met Margaret's, and the Attendant winked at him. "Hello, dear guest. I had a feeling I should come and check on you."

"Margaret!" He reached for her hands, and she suffered him to clasp them tightly, seeking comfort. To see Igor's assistant outside of the Velvet Room was, well, _rare_ to say the least. He still wasn't sure how she managed it. To Yu's understanding, the Velvet Room and its inhabitants were… not _inhuman_ , exactly. But not really _part of_ humanity, either. "Margaret, I… I did something terrible."

"I wouldn't be so quick to affix that label. _Enthusiastic_ , certainly, but terrible remains to be seen." He released her hands, and the woman in blue sat down opposite him. "I cannot blame you; I may have done the same, if I understand the situation correctly. As my sister has often insisted, there are very few problems Megidolaon cannot solve."

"For now, let me reassure you: it seems this man you are concerned for will live. But…" Margaret frowned. It was not an expression Yu was used to seeing on her. But the expression faded, and she gestured at his Tarot deck instead. "Well— for the moment, would you permit me to read your fortune, guest? I apologize for my earlier rudeness, as well. It is dreadfully unlucky to use another's cards without permission."

"Of course," Yu said. Margaret smiled at him in response, then passed her hand over the Tarot deck. The top three cards drifted off of the stack of their own volition, and arranged themselves in a line before him. Yu reflexively took a quick look around, but though the Lord's Market wasn't empty, nobody seemed to be looking their way. Margaret carefully turned over the first card.

"Here is your card, though it should come as no surprise," she said, and tapped the card with her fingernail. "The World, in the upright position. You have worked diligently to grasp the truth of the world, and in doing so, have come to understand the truth of your own heart. Knowing your own nature and desires is a great accomplishment, but one you must not rest easy upon."

She turned over the next card, and her expression grew serious. "The Wheel of Fortune, in the reversed position. This indicates more than a simple run of bad luck, Yu. There are forces at work beyond your control, and the aid that I can give you is limited. My master is bound by certain… rules, we shall say, and I to him."

"Margaret…" Yu started to speak, but she held up a finger to silence him. The third card was turned over.

"The High Priestess, in the upright position. Like the Moon, this card contains a sense of mystery, but this card is not based in obfuscation. Rather, this card recommends that you heed your intuition, and the mysteries of the subconscious mind, if you wish to overturn that Wheel." The three cards abruptly slid together and back into the deck. Margaret pressed her hand over his and leaned forward. "I have a gift for you; two, in fact, though I could only deliver one to you here. I left it in your coat pocket. For the other, I humbly suggest that you come and visit me in the Velvet Room."

"I'd love to, but, Margaret—" Yu protested, even as the Attendant stood from her chair and began to walk away, her blue heels clicking on the pavement. "—I haven't seen any doors, and the Velvet Key disappeared."

"Did you forget so quickly?" she asked him, and turned her head to meet his eyes. "Only one who is bound by a contract may enter. In the coming days, I suggest you find a promise worthy of The World that you wish to keep."

And just like that, she was gone. Yu looked down at the Tarot deck, then carefully scooped it up and put it back in his pocket. There was nothing sharing that space, nor anything in the pocket on his other side, so… had she meant his costume's coat? Yu's eyes widened. His costume! _He was going to be late!_

* * *

Bitch scowled at Yu as he stood in the shadow of her doorway, still hastily doing up buckles and getting his helmet on straight even as the rest of the Undersiders parked their car in the gravel driveway of her dog shelter. Grue got out first, already trailing wisps of darkness. "Okay, Bitch, what is this abou— who is _that_?"

She jerked her thumb behind her, gesturing to Yu even as he finally got his costume settled and walked up behind her. He took up position behind her right shoulder, faced the Undersiders, and gave a slight bow. "Banchō. Works for me part-time. Figured you should meet."

Grue made an eerie hissing noise from inside his helmet. "Bitch, you can't just make your own gang, we're a team, and we make decisions as a team."

"S'not a team, I just said. He's a part-timer, helps with the dogs," she said, as behind her Yu starts patting down his coat, until he came across an odd bulk in one of them. "Said he'd help sometimes if I wanted, so I thought you should know."

"Banchō? That's a Japanese word, isn't it?" Tattletale spoke up, eyeing her newest information target. Yu managed to extricate the gift Margaret had left for him, the sudden movement making Grue tense. "How do we know he's not ABB, or— or— ...what is he doing?"

Bitch looked back at Yu, who was brandishing a telescopic fishing pole at the sky. She turned back to her team and grunted, "I dunno, he's weird like that."


	22. December (4)

**December (4)**

Miss Militia's phone buzzed against her hip, and she plucked it from its holster as she sat down at her desk. Casual movements received a short jolt of adrenaline as soon as she recognized the number as belonging to the office of Dr Jacobsen. She pressed the accept key and brought the phone to her ear. "Miss Militia speaking."

" _Oh! Oh, wow. I wasn't_ _—_ _I didn't know that extension went directly to you,_ " an unfamiliar woman's voice spoke over the line. Miss Militia frowned, but fortunately the speaker continued promptly. " _Uh, my name is Patty Rees, I'm the nurse working for Dr Jacobsen at Brockton General Hospital, and I'm calling regarding, um… am_ _—_ _am I supposed to use his name, when talking to, um, you?_ "

"His name is fine, I know who he is." Not that Miss Militia would be repeating it, until the nurse proved she knew Armsmaster's name already. If there was anything this situation was demonstrating, it was that the Protectorate's Master/Stranger protocols and privacy concerns did not mesh well with _prolonged_ medical emergencies. A bit of a glaring oversight, now that she was in the thick of it, but maybe an understandable one; between the available medical technology and the high end of dangerous threats that heroes faced, there wasn't actually a lot of middle ground between 'injured, but manageable' and 'dead.'

" _Okay, that makes that easier. Anyway, I called to let you know, Mr Wallis is awake, and_ _—_ "

"He is?!" Miss Militia abruptly stood, the motion shoving her chair away with a muted growl of furniture on carpet. "How is he? When did he wake up?"

" _We're pretty sure he started opening his eyes a couple days ago, and since then he slowly got more responsive until he finally woke up around… about three o'clock this morning. As for how he's doing, well, that's been very promising. He's lucid, coherent, showing little to no signs of aphasia or memory loss so far._ " Nurse Rees gave a short, slightly awkward laugh. " _He'll be doing cognitive function tests for a while yet, but the outlook is good. Especially for coming out of a coma, this kind of clarity is almost unheard of._ "

Worry and tension fled from her shoulders so fast Miss Militia nearly sagged, and she laughed at the sudden surge of relief. She'd seen some of the statistics and— well, she supposed it just figured that Armsmasterwould refuse to obey the common trend. "That's wonderful news. When can he have visitors? I don't want to interrupt your work."

There was a sudden, uncomfortable pause from Nurse Rees. " _About that… that's, ah, something I_ _—_ _or the doctor_ _—_ _need to discuss with you._ "

"What about, specifically?"

" _I… won't say he's being uncooperative, exactly. It's just… hm._ " Nurse Rees made a frustrated sound, and tried again. " _Mr Wallis has indicated that he lives alone, without any close family or partner. He did mention housing a nephew, but the young man is underage. He either can't or won't name anyone who could serve as a medical advocate or caretaker. I called you because the Protectorate is actually the closest thing we have to any emergency contacts for him._ "

"I… see. What exactly are you looking for, then?"

" _Well, I_ _—_ _at the least, someone to act as an advocate would be helpful, mostly to have someone he's close to know and understand his treatment plan. Stroke survivors tend to have problems with things like forgetfulness, emotional liability, apathy, much higher incidences of depression and anxiety…_ "

"Wait, I thought you just said he was doing well with all that." The forgetfulness, at least, could probably be remedied just by his own schedule, even if she'd probably need to have a talk with him about micro-management first. It was a bit of a chastising thought, but for all Miss Militia knew, Armsmaster could have been absent-minded all along, just organized enough that she hadn't noticed. The rest of Nurse Rees's list, however, sounded like a problem.

" _I said he was showing good results on the cognitive side of things, ma'am. Things like being able to remember his own name, or still knowing how to read. There's some psychological examinations yet to check for emotional disturbance, but_ _—_ _I mean, a stroke is a_ trauma _, not 'just' a brain injury._ "

"Alright, I understand," she said. This conversation had gone from hopeful to uncomfortable very quickly. She'd tried to keep the irritation out of her tone, but perhaps she hadn't been as successful as she'd hoped, because the nurse paused for a moment.

" _I'm sorry, I shouldn't be dumping all this on you right now. There's still plenty of time yet any final decisions need to be made, anyway. Dr Jacobsen is recommending that Mr Wallis spend at least six weeks in the initial physiotherapy and rehabilitation before we move on to the next stage of treatment. Since he doesn't currently have anyone who can help him get around full-time, we'd like to move him to our inpatient rehab center the duration; we recommend that for most patients, actually. After that, we'll evaluate how prepared he is for independent living and go from there._ "

"'Independent living?' Well, he is pretty adamant about doing things by himself," Miss Militia remarked. Nurse Rees laughed.

" _Haha, yeah, I'm getting that impression from him already. Oh! Jeeze, I never answered your first question, did I? Mr Wallis should be fine for visitors any time. Oh, but if you're planning to come by, could you do us a favor?_ "

Miss Militia pulled her attention away from the patrol schedule, already checking to see when the rest of the team might be available. "What is it?"

" _Mr Wallis has asked about his nephew, and wants to get in contact with him. He couldn't remember the young man's phone number, though, and we don't have it either. So if you could find that for him, I'm sure he'd appreciate it._ "

"Of course, I'll… definitely do that, and… catch him up on things." And by 'I' she meant 'Dauntless.'

* * *

Armsmaster was awake when Miss Militia got to the hospital with Dauntless and Velocity in tow, after normal visiting hours but not in the dead of night. His security detail had been reduced, either for the sake of his privacy or because the assassination threat was winding down, the longer time went on without incident. He still had the ugly line of stitches visible on his scalp, but a thoughtful nurse must have brought him a shaver at some point, because his beard was looking more or less in order. He looked up when Miss Militia knocked on the doorframe, but otherwise remained still, and what had been an impressively surly expression gained an edge of surprise to see the three of them entering. Predictably, Velocity waved first. "Hey Boss! Heard you were up!"

"...do I _look_ up?" Armsmaster groused at them, because he was apparently just as happy to be there in the hospital as he appeared. "I'm awake, at least. What are you three doing here?"

"We came to visit," Militia said, and managed to avoid the customary eyeroll. "How are you doing?"

"M'fine," was the muttered reply. Then, more hesitantly, "Tired, mostly."

"You just slept for a week!" Dauntless grinned at him, then wilted under the immediate glare. "Ah— don't worry about it, sir. I'm sure you'll be on your feet again in no time."

"Right…" he grumbled, then sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. "Before I ask about what I've missed in the past week: please tell me that _someone_ thought to check in on my nephew."

"Yeah, on the first day," Miss Militia started, then felt a ball of ice settle in her stomach when Armsmaster's lips twitched into a small, grateful smile. She quickly put a hand on Dauntless's back and pushed him forward. "Dauntless can tell you about it, I'm gonna go speak with the nurse real quick."

Militia had time to see the start of a confused look on Armsmaster's face before she got out the door, leaving Dauntless to his fate; Velocity had long since vanished. He reappeared before she could decide on a topic to occupy a nurse with, a couple bags of cheap snacks from some far-off vending machine in his hand. He handed her a pack of mini-pretzels and they settled back against the nearest wall to wait. Militia opened the bag as quietly as she could, then lowered her voice to ask, "Any other progress on finding him?"

"Not exactly," Velocity replied. "A regular cop who stopped by the Boardwalk said he saw a kid fitting the description two days ago, but he left before I could get there. Dragon's still refusing to track cellphones without a warrant, which— I mean, yeah, that's reasonable, if frustrating. Kid Win got Armsmaster's less-sanctioned scanner running, but it's on the fritz or something."

"What does that mean?"

"Won't work consistently. Found what we thought was the right phone, but can't keep track of it. Acts like it's popping in and out of reality all over the city, so it's more likely just dropping the trace and constantly picking up new ones."

From the nearby patient room, even through a closed door: "You did _what_?!"

"Weird. Armsmaster's tech doesn't tend to break very often, I don't think."

"Yeah, but when it does, it usually chooses some pretty bad timing, so I'm not surprised. I think that's a rule for tinkertech."

The pair fell to silence, and listened to the angry mutterings now too quiet to be properly overheard through the door. A few minutes later, that grew silent as well, and a moment after that the door clicked open and Dauntless strode out. His cheeks were flushed with anger, embarrassment, or both. He took up position next to Miss Militia and snorted, "And here I was worried his charming personality might not make it through intact."

"Sorry, but I think he's got a pretty good reason to be upset," Velocity shrugged. "He say anything else?"

"Wants his phone, so he can try calling the kid. _His_ phone, specifically, not his work phone," Dauntless sighed. "Told him we didn't know where to look for it, got a lecture on how to find it. Hidden panel on his armor, apparently, with an electro-magnetic lock keyed to his armor's gauntlets. Because _that's_ intuitive to us non-Tinker mortals."

"No need to sulk about it," Miss Militia chided him. "Listen, I'll let him know we'll be back when we have the phone. You two go on ahead."

She waved them off and walked back into Armsmaster's room. The Tinker was where he'd been, still on the bed, with the back half of the furniture angled up to keep him reclined instead of flat on his back. His head was bowed, and Miss Militia might have thought he'd fallen asleep, if it weren't for the occasional tremor working its way across his chest and shoulders. He evidently hadn't heard her enter, but he did hear her shut the door behind her. The moment it clicked, his head jerked up to spot her, then he turned his face away just as quickly.

"What— what are you still doing here?" He rasped at her, swallowed, and made a clear attempt to steady his voice. "It's late. Shouldn't you be heading back to… the Rig, or wherever?"

"Not all of us live out of our offices," she replied. Armsmaster flinched. "...are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he snapped, and turned away again when she tried to move into his line of sight. "Stop it."

"Stop _what_ , Armsmaster? Why won't you look at me, what's wro—" Miss Militia sidestepped again, and while Armsmaster didn't turn to face her he didn't turn further away. Now, she could see that he'd bitten down on his lower lip, and a thin wet line had traced down his visible cheek and vanished into his beard. He tried to turn away further, under the weight of her gaze.

"I didn't— want anyone to— to see me like this."

Miss Militia pulled a chair close and sat in it, then carefully placed a hand over Armsmaster's knee. "...I won't tell anyone."

It might have felt like a childish thing to say, but the sentiment seemed to help. He nodded, once, then turned his face more or less back in her direction. He still wouldn't look up at her, not quite, and he stared at her hand on the blanket instead.

"I'm glad to see that you're okay," she told him. "We all are. And I'll try and bring your laptop tomorrow, along with your phone, so you can talk to Dragon."

"...thank you."

"You should call Chevalier, too. He flew out here as soon as he heard, while you were still asleep."

"Mm."

"I'm sorry; I know you don't like hospitals. But all this is temporary, you'll see. You'll be okay."

Armsmaster squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head.

"I mean it, Armsmaster. You're probably tougher than any of us. You'll get through this just fine."

"I won't," he said, his voice hoarse. "I can't. Not anymore."

"Of course you can," Militia insisted gently, and lightly squeezed her hand on his leg. Armsmaster watched the motion and started to shake. "What?"

"I— Hannah," he whispered, "Hannah, _I can't feel my legs_."


	23. December (5)

**December (5)**

Colin hated the quiet. He always had, and while the hospital wasn't quite complete silence (the occasional tap-tap-tap of computer keys from the nearest nurse's station, the opening and shutting of doors, the whirring hum of floor cleaners carrying on their endless task overnight) it was close enough to make waiting for dawn a much harder task than it needed to be. After Hannah had left— _Miss Militia_ , he corrected himself, just because he was ill was no excuse to get that mixed up—and he'd gotten his composure more or less under control, Colin had been left to try and reconcile himself to the unfamiliar situation of having _nothing to do_. Nothing to diagnose, nothing to repair, nothing to even take apart and put back together for the hell of it; there was nothing and no one to listen to, to distract him from the quiet of an empty room.

A nurse mercifully came to check on him while doing her rounds some time past midnight, and found him still awake when she turned the lights on dimly to peer into the room. "Mr Wallis, you're not asleep? What's wrong?"

If he had the answer to that, he'd have done something about it already. Instead, he just muttered, "I don't sleep much."

"You definitely need the rest," she countered, and moved over closer to his bed. The nurse pursed her lips and gave him a once-over. "Is it that you don't want to sleep, or that you can't?"

"...can't," Colin answered, then sighed. Pressing for details was her job, there was no sense in being resentful over it. "Insomnia, for a few years now."

"Do you want something to help you sleep? I can give you a mild sedative."

He didn't, no, because even most over-the-counter medications tended to hit him like a freight train, but it was better than staring at the walls and feeling his life crumbling around him. Once he consented, the nurse pushed a small amount of something through his IV, and the world faded into an incoherent darkness.

. . . . . .

(" _You really think you can keep avoiding everything? Look around you. It's not going away."_ )

(" _I can't go to hell if I'm already there. You think this is fun for me?"_ )

(" _Shut it. Listen- can you hear that?"_ )

. . . . . .

When Colin woke up, it was already morning, and his heart was pounding like he'd been having a nightmare.

* * *

Miss Militia showed up again in the afternoon, after Colin had spent the last several hours in increasingly-frustrated tests with a neurologist, this time with Assault and Battery in tow; not expected, but not terribly surprising, either, considering Assault's fondness for finding ways to procrastinate on his actual duties and his tendency to drag Battery along with him. At least Militia had kept her word and brought his laptop and his phone. She set the former on the nightstand and started looking for an outlet, while Colin took the latter in hand as best he could. Twelve missed calls? One from Yu, and— oh. Arcadia. Probably a truancy officer. That was going to be an unpleasant conversation.

Battery closed the door and drew the privacy curtain for good measure before joining Assault and Militia. "Hey, Armsmaster. How are you feeling?"

"Indescribable," he said, because a non-answer was at least better than snapping at her first thing. Why had Militia brought _yet more_ of the team here? Did _everyone_ need to see him confined to a bed and without pants? Colin grit his teeth and shoved the growing sense of humiliation away, even as his attempts to navigate to his phone's contacts added to it. It was a poor performance: his hands were clumsy, shaking, barely feeling like they even belonged to him. This whole day of motor function tests had raised some rather horrifying implications that he absolutely was _not_ going to consider right now. Not with witnesses, and not when he still didn't know if his nephew was okay.

"You, uh… need any help?" Assault offered, at least managing to keep any overt humor out of his voice.

" _No_ , I am fine," Colin ground out from between his teeth, as he finally managed to press the phone's screen to trigger Yu's number. The line rang once, twice, then connected. "Yu?"

" _Uncle!"_ Yu nearly shouted, prompting Colin to move the phone a little ways away from his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed his coworkers' eyes visibly widen as the young man's exclamations continued. " _You are alive! Are you alright? Can I come see you? Where are you? Your work told me you were injured but they did not tell me where you were, and I checked every hospital but none of them would tell me if you were there, and_ _—_ _"_

"Yu, slow down," he interrupted. "Yes, I'm alive. Are _you_ okay?"

" _Yes, I am fine. I have been staying with friends."_

"Alright, that's— that's good," Colin said. He actually felt himself sag against the bed a little bit, feeling like a weight had just been lifted off of his chest. Christ, but he hoped Dauntless was proud of himself. "I'm at Brockton General, room 526. If you're safe where you are, then—"

" _I am there."_ Click. Colin pulled the phone away from his ear and blinked at it. That… wasn't literal, right?

"That was him? He sounded pretty happy to hear from you," Battery commented, then smiled. "Guess he was worried about you. You seem pretty worried about him, too."

Colin tried, and failed, not to scowl at her. What was that supposed to mean? "Of course I'm worried. Why the hell wouldn't I be?"

"Ah, more to the point," Militia cut in, stopping either of them from beginning an argument, "is he coming here?"

"I think so, yes. I wanted to tell him to wait, but he hung up." He couldn't really find it in himself to be angry at the teen for it, though. "He does know who I am, but maybe you shou—"

"No way, I want to meet him!" Assault grinned, and pressed, "If you've already told him your super-secret identity, there's no harm in introducing him to a few more heroes, right? C'moooon, Velocity said you had a picture of him, but Puppy and I never got to see it."

"Can't you find a way to get out of work that doesn't involve intruding on my personal business?"

Assault gave him an affronted look. "What? Hey, that's not why we're here."

Whatever excuse Assault was going to give was cut off by the sounds of an altercation just outside the room. The lone PRT security detail's voice was somewhat muffled by the closed door, but still audible enough that the heroes stopped to listen. Battery stood, then went still as the lines on her costume started to glow as she charged up her power, just in case.

...  
"Sir, this is a restricted area, you need to leave."

"This is room five-two-six? This is where I need to be. Excuse me."

"You need authorization to be here, you can't just- h-hey! PUT ME DOWN!"

Miss Militia stayed near the bed, hand to her power at her hip, while Assault crossed the room in three long strides and opened the door, then quickly stepped back from it. A silver-haired young man darted into the room and flung the door shut behind him, cutting off the security guard's calls and coming face to face with Assault.

"Hello, please excuse me." Yu reached out in one swift motion and pinned Assault's arms to his side, then lifted the hero up off the ground as though he weighed less than a child. He then set Assault back down to the side, out of his way, and strode further into the room. Yu directed a beaming smile at Colin and said, "I found the room."

Miss Militia had drawn her pistol on reflex, Battery was fully charged, and Assault had just been manhandled after Yu had barged into a secured location by means of, presumably, doing to the PRT trooper what he'd done to Assault; Colin could actually hear the trooper radioing in an alert. When he'd told Chevalier that Yu wasn't a troublesome teen he had meant it, but at that moment Colin hoped to God that this was an exception to the rule, and not a norm that he had overlooked. More immediately, Assault had just been pushed aside by someone with a Brute package, and the hero was experienced enough to recognize it. "Yu, what did I tell you about using your powers in public?"

"Wait, _what_?"

"To not go looking for trouble?" Yu offered, slowing his steps once he got to the foot of the bed.

"Yes, and?"

"To be discreet," Yu finished, then frowned. "Sorry, uncle."

"Please be more careful," Colin sighed. "Militia, can you speak to the guard before he brings everyone in here? And Yu, how did you even get here so quickly?"

"I took a short-cut."

"Hell of a grip you've got there, kid," Assault muttered, and stepped aside for Miss Militia as she hurried out to de-escalate things.

"Oh, no. Did I hurt you?"

"Only his pride, maybe. It'd take a lot more to bruise this guy," Battery cut in with a smile, forestalling any of Assault's melodramatics. "You're Armsmaster's nephew? Pleased to meet you, I'm Battery, the woman with the gun is Miss Militia, and this meathead next to me is Assault."

"It is good to meet you as well," Yu said with a polite smile. As soon as the introduction was finished he dropped the expression and turned back to Colin, face and voice so full of worry it was approaching exasperation. "Uncle, what happened? I was told you were hurt, but no one would say why, and then they lied about you being hurt on the news."

Miss Militia came back in time to hear that last bit, and even with her bandanna Colin could see her scowl. The news Yu mentioned was probably a press briefing, and if Armsmaster was unavailable that meant Militia had likely been the one to give it. "It wasn't a _lie_ , exactly, it was—"

"Yes it was." Colin bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling. Apparently Yu had no qualms about talking back to heroes.

"It was probably to keep anyone from trying to take advantage of my absence, Yu. Don't be angry over it," Colin said, drawing Yu's attention back to him. The pleading expression on the teen's face was almost painful to look at, but Colin didn't really want to go over his problems with anyone right now. Listing them off meant thinking about them. "And how I got hurt isn't important right now. I was told you ran away, what happened?"

"...it is important," Yu protested, but quietly. The young man sighed, then took a breath and put a smile on his face. "I was worried I would be forced to leave the city, so I went to stay with a friend for a while."

"You certainly proved hard to find," Miss Militia commented. "But no one was going to force you to leave."

"I was told that my parents would be called," Yu countered, his voice gone sober.

"Your parents could have taken care of you, instead of you needing to stay with friends," she insisted.

"My parents would not take care of me," he said, neatly suppressing any further argument by dropping a heavy implication upon it. "So, I stayed with my employer."

"Employer?" Colin felt a ball of ice fall into his stomach. Yu was _mostly_ level-headed and he had that dossier from that detective girl, but he was also a parahuman. If he'd gotten picked up by a gang while Colin was in a coma…!

"That reminds me, I meant to tell you. I have a part-time job! Several, actually. I found a young woman who works with rescued dogs, and I help her a few times a week." Yu started beaming again. Colin felt the ice in his gut melt. Humanitarian work—or whatever the term was when applied to animals—definitely wasn't the ABB. Then the rest of Yu's sentence caught up to him.

"What exactly do you mean by 'several?'"

"Oh, I collect them."

"You… collect jobs?" Battery asked slowly, for all of them. "What exactly do you _do_?"

Yu decided to choose that moment to find an actual chair and get comfortable. Once he was settled, he seemed happy enough to explain. "Well, I cannot be actually hired because I am here on a visa. But, I like to collect part-time jobs, so I find people who need small chores done, like my friend with her dogs: I help her move around the heavier sacks of food, and clean. I also met a young man who cannot often leave his residence, so I fetch his groceries for him…"

* * *

Yu followed Bitch into the Undersiders' lair, feeling quite pleased that he actually got to see a parahuman group's real lair. Sure, they weren't Sentai, but Yosuke was going to be so jealous when Yu told him. Even better, Bitch inviting him there was an offer of trust from the taciturn young woman, and also an offer to use her group's shower. Yu was thankful for both of the gifts.

They got up the stairs and Bitch led the way into a moderately furnished loft, much cleaner than the abandoned warehouse below, but still filled with the marks of habitation left behind by the teenagers living there; Yu carefully skirted around a pyramid of stacked cans, making sure not to hit them with either his coat or the sheathe of his sword. The other Undersiders were already in the room, though to Yu's surprise they had removed their masks. He quickly recognized Alec sitting at the kitchen island and eating a bowl of cereal, and Black Condor walking next to Tattletale, minus her domino mask.

"Bancho, welcome. We were hoping to get a chance to talk with you, especially since you already get along with Bitch." Brian's voice really did sound different with his Grue helmet and power active, it was an impressive disguise. Well, if they were going to be unmasked, then… Yu pulled off his helmet and ran his clawed glove through his hair. Brian nearly tripped over his own feet and Alec started choking on his cereal.

"Grocery Guy?" "Gym Guy?"

Tattletale looked between Brian, Alec, and Bitch, eyes getting wider by the second. "Wait, _why do all of you know him_?!"

* * *

"And I read Tarot cards at Lord's Market a couple days a week."

"Tarot cards? So, you're a fortuneteller?" Battery asked, and Yu nodded.

"Yes. I am told I am quite good at it."

* * *

Yu carefully shuffled his cards, putting the ones he'd drawn for his last customer back into the deck, then settled back to wait. There was someone watching him from a cafe across the street, and they'd been there for a while now. Not one of the Lord's Market security guards, or anyone from the PRT, so he wasn't terribly worried about it, but he was starting to get impatient. They kept glancing up from within a cocoon of a puffy coat layered over a hooded sweatshirt and hat, and Yu waited until he caught sight of them again. This time, he gestured, and after another moment's hesitation, the figure got up from their table and shuffled across the street, to stand in front of his little table.

Yu put his finger on the top card of the deck and flipped it over. The Hanged Man; the girl in the coat twitched, and Yu caught a glimpse of plain, somewhat frizzy brown hair.

"Hello," he greeted her. "Would you like me to read the cards for you, Amy?"

* * *

"...and recently, I met a bartender and asked him to teach me how to mix drinks."

"Okay that one is definitely illegal, Yu."

"It probably would be, if I were being paid or drinking. I am doing neither. I just wanted to learn a skill."

* * *

"Okay, so this one is called a Tequila Sunrise. Yu, grab one of those highball glasses from the fridge—yeah, the tall ones there—and that bottle of Cuervo to your left. You're gonna need the orange juice and grenadine too," the orange-skinned man pointed at another cooler behind the bar, very narrowly avoiding knocking into the line of empty glasses on the bar beside him; proof positive of Yu's achievements thus far. Newter was turning out to be an enthusiastic instructor. Yu wondered if he spent much time on the barstools when the Palanquin was actually open, or if the odd parahuman really _was_ the bartender. He rather doubted he'd be allowed in the nightclub once it opened for business in a few hours, and that was a shame, but if Newter was willing to teach him the fine art of mixology in the daytime, then Yu was happy enough with the arrangement.

"A'ight, now, this is a layered drink. We don't mix it, we need to let each ingredient stay put. They're all different weights, so they'll float on each other just fine if you're careful, and we'll end up with nice, solid colors. Start with the tequila, and pour it 'til about here," Newter said, and tapped a fingernail against the outside of the glass. Yu moved to follow his instructions, then froze when someone cleared their throat nearby.

Faultline stood at the end of the bar, and eyed first the orange man, then the line of emptied cocktails, then finally Yu, still holding the bottle of liquor.

"Okay, who the hell is this, and why is he in my club?"

* * *

"So I am counting that as a fourth part-time job," Yu nodded to himself. "I collected seven jobs last year. I am going to try for nine." Colin just blinked. Was… was that _normal_?

"Okay, okay!" Assault started laughing, " _Now_ I believe you two are related."

* * *

His co-workers eventually left, as did Yu, though not before Colin put off the young man's questions about his health again. It… probably wasn't fair to him, he really did seem worried. Colin just wanted some time to process it, first. At least Yu was doing alright, even with this mess.

The quiet was back, pressing in all around him. Colin grit his teeth together and leaned back against the pillow, then shut his eyes.

. . . . . .

(" _Don't dare dwell on anything that might make you lose your composure, hm? It's 'unprofessional,' I suppose. Right."_ )

(" _You can't fool me."_ )

. . . . . .

Colin woke up in the middle of the night, and his heart was pounding like he'd been having a nightmare.


	24. December (6)

**December (6)**

"Well, you look like shit."

Colin blinked awake, heart racing from a nightmare interrupted.

"Wait— sorry, were you asleep? I didn't mean to wake you up."

He turned his head to the side to identify the visitor, then couldn't quite suppress the eyeroll once the whole situation resolved into coherency. "Did you mean instead to sit in the dark and watch me sleep? Seems a bit over the line even for you, Harry."

"I've got a little pocket flashlight, I was actually just going to read," Myrddin said, his expression pulling sideways into a half-grin. He'd come without his robes and mask, but the self-proclaimed wizard still had his staff with him, and Colin spotted the oversized stick leaning against the wall next to the chair where Myrddin sat, the man stretched out across seemingly half the floor as well. Colin was tall enough, but Myrddin was taller, and he was built to a far more lanky design that made the difference between them seem more than it was.

"You can read anywhere," Colin muttered, then made an attempt to rub at his eyes and clear his vision a bit. He must have still been dreaming when Myrddin woke him up, at first glance the room had looked much darker and claustrophobic than it was. Great, and his ears were ringing again, too. Not a high-pitched whine like he associated with the aftermath of gunfire or explosions, more of a faint, crackling sound. Like hearing radio static from an adjacent room.

"Sure, but reading here lets me check in and see how you're doing. And how _are_ you holding up?"

"Didn't you just say I look like shit?"

"I didn't mean it," Myrddin protested, then sighed. "Mostly, anyway. You don't look well. And you look really weird without your hair, I'm sorry to say."

Colin's hand twitched, but he managed to resist the impulse to reach up and touch the ugly line that traced along his scalp. He didn't like being reminded of it. "I'm fine."

Myrddin was quiet for a moment. "Colin, I don't need Michael's Truth and Justice aura to know that's a lie."

The sound of his own name made him twitch, for some reason. "...I don't want to talk about it."

"Alright. Then what would you like to talk about?" Myrddin asked, as he settled back into his chair. Colin blinked at him, which only prompted the other man to repeat his question. He… wasn't going to insist? Or leave? Colin and Harry didn't agree on much (or… anything, to be perfectly honest) and after having known him for a while, it was Colin's opinion that Harry simply enjoyed being a contrary bitch. This might have been the first time that Harry had ever done or said something that Colin completely supported; he might have to give him more credit, in the future. Though, he was still putting the onus of finding a topic on Colin, and they didn't have a whole lot of shared interests. Maybe he could just ask about the news, or how Chicago was doing, or—

"Anything but the present," Colin said, and immediately regretted it. He hadn't meant to say that. He'd— he'd meant the _sentiment_ , if he were being honest, but he'd never choose to just _say it_ like that, to just ask for a distraction. Why had he done that? "Sorry, I don't— I didn't mean—"

"It's fine. Hey, did I ever tell you and Michael about this villain we had on the South end of Chicago…"

* * *

Myrddin was still talking over an hour later. Chicago might not have been as virulent with parahuman crime as Brockton Bay, but Harry had a singular knack for having trouble stumble across him while on its way to do anything else, so he had a surplus of stories to tell, and he was naturally chatty enough to be fine with telling them. And with more than one of them, if Colin hadn't seen for himself the sorts of decisions that capes made, he'd have sworn they were complete fabrications.

"So, wait, let me get this straight," he said, interrupting Harry near the tail end of the latest anecdote, "This guy was a Striker _only_? Not a Master?"

"Mhm. Still don't know if he was actually limited to vermin, or just small animals, or if that was just his preference."

"Who the hell _chooses_ to carry around a bag of scorpions that they can't control?"

"Well as it turns out, a lot of villains just aren't very smart."

Colin had to laugh, just a little: truer words had never been spoken. Granted, that phrase applied to a lot of heroes, too, and the times it turned out false and a villain was acting with intelligence tended to take any humor out of the situation… For a moment, Colin wondered if Chevalier had heard this latest anecdote from Myrddin already. There was a good chance of it; not just because they tended to meet up more often than Colin could afford to, but because even when he did get out of the Bay, he had a habit of focusing on whatever Tinkering he had at hand to do instead of the conversation. He'd certainly done so last time, after the Leviathan fight, and the time before that, after a Behemoth fight…

Myrddin caught his attention before he could follow that train of thought any further. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, the humor vanishing from his face as he asked, "So, really— what happens now, anyway?"

That was not a question he'd been hoping to answer. It wasn't a question he'd even considered, in fact he'd been pointedly refusing to consider it as much as he could. He knew that the doctors and the nurses had been telling him, but beyond that, well… Any time he tried to even wonder about it, the awful quiet would press in, his chest would tighten and he'd start feeling so nervous he'd get sick from it. He hadn't even been able to answer Miss Militia, when she'd asked.

But Myrddin didn't answer to Armsmaster, didn't need him to do anything but speak. And with him here, it wasn't so quiet in the room that Colin couldn't try and order his thoughts a bit.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I'm… being moved to a rehab center tomorrow, but the neurologist wouldn't give me any ballpark odds on if I'll ever walk again."

"...I'm sorry."

"I thought about— what I could do to Tinker around it, but— well, it's complicated," Colin said, unable to stop the grimace. If it had _only_ been his legs that were broken, he could have had a dozen different solutions by now. "My armor wasn't designed with any sort of impulse system. That is, it can't move _for_ me. I'd have to make an entirely new suit design from scratch and I honestly don't know where I'd even start, I'm not specced for robotics."

"Well, what about—"

"Cybernetics? If I could design and install them myself, maybe, but I don't have any designs that _provably_ work with a biological component, and besides, I would think it'd be kind of insanely risky to try and implant anything into still-damaged brain tissues." How long would that take to heal? And with neuroplasticity being what it was, would a post-injury brain map correctly to where things were supposed to be? He'd never tried to build any of the designs he'd been given by his power, never gotten them prototyped or run any function tests or simulations on them. They'd probably work fine on the mechanical end, interfacing with different examples of tinkertech, but that wasn't the important part. And Christ, even if he'd had a working design, he'd never be able to build it if he couldn't get his _goddamn hands_ to stop shaking!

Colin stopped himself, focused on breathing and not just losing it. Harry was quiet for a moment, letting him at least pretend he had privacy. "Can't someone else do it for you, then? There's more Tinkers in the Protectorate than just you."

"That's—" Colin stopped, and dragged a hand down over his face. "There _are_ , but it won't happen. PRT doesn't permit its Tinkers to augment much, and especially not on other people."

"What? _Why_?"

"Master-Stranger protocols," Colin said bitterly. "Augmetic, for example— he's a cybernetics Tinker. Or Cranial, over in Toybox. Tinkertech needs _maintenance_ , which means something like a replacement organ or a brain implant like I'd need… it's effectively handing over a killswitch to the operating Tinker. High-impact blackmail."

"But Augmetic is Protectorate," Myrddin argued. "I can see them downvoting Cranial, but Augmetic is a hero. He's on _our_ side, there's no blackmail in that."

"Not now, no. But it _could_ be, and that's all the Oversight Committee sees," Colin sighed. "And they're not even wrong about it. Just because Augmetic wouldn't betray the Protectorate doesn't erase the fact that capes like Heartbreaker exist. Someone subverts him, then anyone he's operated on is compromised by default."

"...I'd wondered why we never had a bunch of mundane troopers with, like, dermal implants or something," Myrddin finally muttered.

"Well— something that simple is more a matter of consent. The whole maintenance thing," Colin explained, and waved one hand in a vague motion. "Not a lot of people lining up to get elective surgery every month."

"Ah…" Myrddin trailed off. After a few moments he sighed through his nose, then looked up and glanced around the room. "There a clock in here?"

"If there is, it's not where I can see it." _That_ was frustrating. Being hospitalized had completely ruined Colin's carefully-measured sleep schedule, and now he kept falling asleep and not knowing when, or for how long. Time was passing, and he had no say in it. He hated that.

"Mm. Sorry, but I should start getting back to Chicago. Got evil plans to thwart, fires to start, all that. But keep me updated, alright, Tin Man?"

Colin nodded, though he rather doubted he'd do so.

"'Will do, o handsome and daring Scarecrow', he said," Myrddin narrated for him, then departed with a smile and a wave. Colin watched him go, then settled back with a sigh. At least he wouldn't be here much longer? That was good. And the ringing in his ears had settled, so there was that. He searched for scraps of optimism for a bit longer, came up short, then finally gave up and resigned himself to waiting for tomorrow.

* * *

The inpatient rehab center had a ridiculous name, 'Hope Gardens' or something, and it had doubled down on the motif by putting framed photographs and cheap oil paintings of plants and nature scenes everywhere. It had bright, airy rooms full of tables and chairs, and different props and tools for physical therapy exercises, and none of it did anything to disguise the fact that most of the patients were doddering old men or hunched-over old women. It was better than the hospice care center, but not by much. Colin stayed silent as an aide wheeled him through the center in a chair, then settled him into his new room. Yu had insisted that he'd stop by later, after school, and he'd thoughtfully offered to bring Colin his clothes from the drawers at home (thus saving Colin the embarrassment of having to _ask_ for them). Until then, however, he had the day to himself to adjust to his new surroundings.

They weren't encouraging. Sure, the room was clean and relatively spacious, seeing as how it'd been designed for wheelchair access, but that meant the measurements for everything were just _off_. The bed was lower down than he'd expected, as was the sink in the attached bathroom. Little things like that; nothing bizarre, but enough small differences to be disorienting. At least there was a visible clock.

The bathroom had a mirror as well, also too low down to be normal, but at least it was there. Colin examined his reflection for a bit, ran shaking fingers through his beard; it was getting scruffy again. He _liked_ his beard, he didn't want to just shave it off, but needing help to use a trimmer was similarly unappealing a prospect. Aside from that, he reluctantly had to admit that Harry was right: he _did_ look weird without his hair. Hopefully it would grow back quickly. At least there was nothing to get in the way of that, Allen was probably bald as well but he'd heard that chemo could make hair regrow a bit patchy—

Colin had to grab the edge of the sink and lean against it. _Allen_. If he'd needed chemotherapy, then yeah, he was probably bald too. It was just a statement of fact, it was just an idle thought, why did it have to feel like he'd been punched in the chest?

Colin waited for the sudden tremors and tightness in his throat to calm down. He'd never called, he'd _meant_ to but he'd never— he'd written it down on his calendar. Had it been 90 days yet? He… he had his phone, it and his laptop were the only possessions he'd brought with him to the rehab center. He _could_ call _now_. He wasn't used to the wheelchair yet, so just getting over to his bag and fishing the phone out of it was a lengthier task than it needed to be, but he managed it. He'd remembered to put their number in his Contacts, at least, and after a few moments of wrestling with the phone he got the number to (probably) Akane's cell displayed.

It took another few moments of staring at the Call icon before he managed to force himself to press it, but he did. Colin tucked the phone into the crook of his neck, holding it with his shoulder rather than his unreliable fingers, and listened to the ring.

The call connected with a click, and a woman's voice. " _Hello?"_

"This is Colin Wallis," he said on reflex. "I'm looking for—"

" _Oh, so you do know my number after all. Could have fooled me, Colin."_ Akane's voice was bitter, even exasperated. " _After this much time, I didn't expect you to call at all."_

"I'm sorry, Akane. I've just… been busy," because _that_ was a good excuse. Maybe still better than dragging out old wounds, and admitting that he didn't think his attention was wanted.

" _Sure."_

Maybe this was a mistake. "H-how… is he? And you," he added. "How are both of you?"

" _Alive, thanks for asking."_ Then she sighed, and her tone lost its sarcasm, but kept the bite. " _Surgery went well, but Allen hasn't quite finished up his radiation yet, so I'm stretched thin trying to care for him_ and _keep up with work. And not so much as a hello from you? It's been_ three months _, Colin. Three months before you bothered to even ask. I'm really curious, what got you to pick up the phone?"_

"I—" Colin swallowed, and cast his gaze around his bright, cheerful prison full of handicapped-accessible fixtures. No, no there was no way he could mention that. They had their own problems to worry about, they didn't need his as well. He couldn't do that to Allen. "I just wanted… your address."

" _What?"_

"It's— it's December. I mail a card every year. But I didn't know where to send it this time."

There was a long moment of silence from the other end of the line. " _That's it?_ That's _what made you pull your head out of your ass, Colin? No checking in, no offers to help, no, it's a_ card _you're worried about? And you wait until the last minute on that, too? What is even the matter with y_ _—_ _"_ Click.

Colin blinked. The phone was in his hand again. He stared down at it in horror. He'd— he'd hung up. He'd hung up on her.

...

Well, _good job there_ , Colin! That was only the _worst_ possible response to give, holy _shit_. If Akane hadn't hated him before, she sure as hell did now. That was just— God damn, anything he touched turned to ash, how did he manage to be so consistently terrible at _everything_?

A nurse came by not long after, and had him sedated and helped into bed after she mistook his attempt to spontaneously will himself out of existence for a panic attack. Time got rather incoherent after that. He was barely awake when Yu arrived, with a small bag of his clothes and a number of questions. Even while answering them, Colin wasn't entirely sure what he was saying, or if he'd remember later. Whether he made sense or not, Yu didn't complain. He just sat near the bed and listened, until the room got dark and the everyday noise and clutter from outside his small room quieted down.

"Uncle… I am very sorry that this happened," Yu said quietly. "I am going to do whatever I can to make this right. But I want to ask you something."

"Hm?" A vaguely-questioning noise was the best Colin could manage at the moment. He tried to focus his thoughts past the medicinal haze.

"I am sure there are many things you wish you could accomplish; I know you have worked very hard to be a hero. So… if you could still do one thing, what would it be?"

One thing, as a hero? There were a lot of things he still wanted to do. But if he had to choose, then… there was really only one goal he'd been working towards, no matter how far away it always seemed:

"I'd kill an Endbringer." Colin heard Yu take a sharp breath, then exhale slowly. He closed his eyes, sleep claiming him.

"Alright, Uncle. Then... that is what we will do."

.

..

…

"I promise."


End file.
